


Serpent

by thebookhunter



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, Thor (Movies)
Genre: Angst, Angst and Porn, Bad Romance, Human AU, M/M, Rock Star Loki, Thor doesn't deserve this shit, Thor wasn't perfect either, Warning: Loki, another short story that does a runner on me, bad relationships, but they can't live without each other, mention of fucked up things Loki does while under the influence, mentions of drug use, not very well anyway, what a surprise
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-07-17
Updated: 2017-05-12
Packaged: 2018-07-24 11:22:30
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 7
Words: 25,891
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7506325
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thebookhunter/pseuds/thebookhunter
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Basically read the prompt.<br/>(Ok ok.)</p><p>It's been years, but Thor's still not over Loki. He has put some sort of life back together, but now Serpent are back in town, and whatever semblance of peace and balance he's managed to create is about to be turned on its head.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [thisdorkyficthing](https://archiveofourown.org/users/thisdorkyficthing/gifts).
  * In response to a prompt by [thisdorkyficthing](https://archiveofourown.org/users/thisdorkyficthing/pseuds/thisdorkyficthing) in the [ThorLokiPromptMeme](https://archiveofourown.org/collections/ThorLokiPromptMeme) collection. 



> beta'd by the wonderful, the one and only, the splendid, the magnificent Thorctopus
> 
>  
> 
> **Prompt:**
> 
>  
> 
> Thor got dumped by Loki years ago, right around the time his band began to Hit It Big. He's never really gotten over him either(it doesn't help that Loki's fame seemed to explode overnight - meaning his face and voice were basically everywhere - a little salt to rub in that wound, sir?). And it's not helping that Loki's party boy antics have been seeming to escalate - he's doing shows drunk/high(something he would have never done when they were dating) and between that, if multiple gossip rags are to be trusted, going on scary sounding benders on the regular. He watches it all from afar, wishing he could just talk to Loki again.
> 
> And then he finds out Loki's doing a show in his city.
> 
> (bonus points if he goes and aside from the party anthems that get played on the radio, Loki's other songs all seem to be about Thor)
> 
> ((DOUBLE bonus points if Loki plays a heartbroken acoustic version of Their Song to close the show))

 

The little green dot on his screen has been annoying Thor all day, and yet he still refuses to check the message. When he saw the name of the sender this morning, he cursed. He had seen it coming the moment the posters started to pop up all over town, plastering every flat surface, His Face staring at him every fucking step he took all over the goddamn city, and would continue to do so long after he’d gone. So, Serpent are in town. Initially one-night-only, but seeing as there aren't venues big enough for them in this town anymore, and that the tickets have sold like hot cakes, they had doubled up. Just fucking _great_. And sure enough, bang on cue, that fucking green dot that's staring at him like a game of who blinks first. He guesses there's no point putting it off. He hits on call.

“ _Volstagg here, hello_.”

“Hey, it’s me.”

“ _Big T! Long time no see! How are you, man? Did you see my text?_ ”

“Yeah. What’s up.”

_“Want to meet up? Haven’t seen you in ages, man.”_

Thor sighs. It's not Volstagg’s fault, is it?

“Yeah, sure. Where?”

 

_________________

 

Even with the smoking ban, the old place is as stinky and foggy as Thor remembered it. When he arrives, Volstagg is already there, chatting up the bartenders, always everybody’s favourite customer everywhere he goes. And Thor’s face cheers up a bit, in spite of himself, when he's met with a smile bright enough to read by at night.

“My man is here, look at him!” bellows his old friend.

Thor is crushed in a hearty hug, his back patted hard enough to make him wince.

“You look fucking terrible!” teases Volstagg when they sit down. “Look at you! Your hair is shining, your teeth bright white, the healthy glow on your face… Did you use to have dimples? And do you fucking moisturize now or what? I swear, kids today. Please don’t tell me you’ve turned vegan or something.”

Thor laughs.

“I’ve just cut out the rock band lifestyle,” he says. “You look like shit. How many years has it been again?”

“It’s not the years, dear, it’s the mileage. You know, the road, the all-nighters, the diva singer-songwriters…”

That puts the damper back on Thor’s mood as fast as Volstagg’s smile had lifted it.

“Yeah,” is all he says.

His friend clinks their glasses together, raises his. No words. They both drink.

“So, how is it going,” asks Volstagg.

“Fine.”

“Still working at The Sound Kitchen?”

“No, I have my own studio now.”

“Oh, whoa, mister impresario! Your own boss, eh? I envy you, dude.”

Thor traces circles on the rim of his glass. He knows what Volstagg is doing, with all those little hints. He can dance around The Subject until it's time to go home, or he can grow a pair and just ask.

“That bad, eh?” he says.

“You read the rags?” asks Volstagg.

“I don’t fucking have to. He was in the news two months ago. The general news, that is.”

“Yup.”

“Is it all real?

“I bet. Booze, dope, dick… It’s not pretty. And fans are not as understanding as they were in the seventies, you know. He’s alienating a good chunk of them.”

“But the CDs are still selling, aren’t they?, and the gigs…”

“Yeah, but the big bosses are always shitting bricks, coming at him with the threats from the insurance companies. Which is like waving a red flag in front of a bull, of course, you know how he is.”

“Yeah, I know.”

Thor feels his friend’s eyes on him, piercing, insightful. It's no use playing it cool. It's probably all on his face for Volstagg to see. It's annoying.

“He misses you, my man,” says Volstagg.

“Get the fuck out,” grumbles Thor, an unpleasant sensation in his gut.

“He started going downhill the moment you guys broke up, and he hasn’t stopped since.”

“Broke up?” snaps Thor. “He royally dumped my ass, dude.”

“Yeah, he’s an asshole. And yet.”

Thor does not appreciate this kind of shit right now. Change subjects.

“How’s Hildy?”

“She’s great.” Volstagg gives him a commiserating half smile. “You guys were so in love.”

Thor snorts, bitter as ever-living fuck. He has nothing to say to that. Or rather, if he starts he'll never fucking stop. But Volstagg is relentless.

“Must have been hard for you, when it was over,” he insists, prodding in the wound.

“His face was all over the fucking place. Couldn’t turn the fucking radio on without hearing his voice. Yeah, it sucked seven ways from Tuesday. I’m over it now, but thanks for your concern.”

“Have you heard the last record?”

“Sure, I have nothing else better to do,” The sarcasm is strong with this one. “Listen, I’m really glad you guys are doing well, but I try to avoid everything you do like the plague. No offense.”

“None taken,” says Volstagg beatifically. “You may want to hear it, you know?”

“I’m pretty sure I wouldn’t. Thanks but no thanks.”

Volstagg takes a long gulp, his own brand of meditation.

“You know he never says what he feels, so he… writes songs about it.”

“We used to fight about that a lot,” concedes Thor, between his teeth.

“Come and see us at the Odeon.”

“I don’t think so.”

“Please.”

Thor shakes his head in dismay.

“You don’t fucking give up, do you? Did Darcy put you up to this?”

“Nah, haven’t talked to her in ages.”

“Darcy too? Shit.”

“Yeah, I’m the only one left.”

Thor rubs his eyes, with a huff of exhaustion. The situation is dismal.

“What can I honestly do, dude, what?” he says. “Do you think he’ll listen to me? What can I even tell him?”

“I don’t know man. I’m just out of ideas, good, bad, or ugly,” sighs Volstagg. “He’s going to go up in smoke before he turns thirty-one. You know me, I can’t just sit back and watch it happen. I mean, sure, he’s my employer, but hell, I care about him too, ok? And so did you, once. So I don’t know, my man, I don’t know. Right now, I’ll take anything I can get. I’m desperate.”

Thor glares at him, all the bitterness and hurt he still feels about it all turning into quiet, seething rage. Volstagg just smiles sadly. He must know it's not aimed at him.

“I know it was bad between you…”

“You have no idea,” cuts Thor.

“…but you loved him even at his worst, and I just thought you might want to have your say before it’s too late, or try at least.”

Thor sits back, hunching like a sack of grain.

“I have nothing to tell him.”

“Just come to the Odeon on Friday.”

“You won’t stop, will you.”

Volstagg smiles sweetly again.

“I’ll think about it,” Thor grants, to get him off his back.

“That’s all I’m asking.”

“Don’t get your hopes up.”

“Thank you, man.”

He clinks their glasses together again, drinks it all down.

“This shit is as bad as always, worst warm horsepiss in town! Another? Hey, what about the old gang, are they still around?”

“As far as I know. I don’t see them often. We play cards with Hogun about once a month, that’s about it.”

“How come?”

“Fandral is always here there and everywhere with small gigs, and Sif… Well, you know.”

“Hm, yeah, that went a bit south on you too, didn’t it? Turned complicated.”

“No bad mojo, just… you know. She went her own way when Jane appeared.”

“Is she around still? Jane?”

“Nope.”

Thor refuses to meet Volstagg compassionate stare. Save your fucking pity, man.

“Is there anyone right now?” asks his friend.

“What does that have to do with anything?” snaps Thor.

“Easy there, my man, just asking… Anyway, we should meet up, all of us, don’t you think? Go for a drink?”

“Call them if you want. If they’re in, I’m in. Got their numbers?”

“I do.”

“Let me know then.”

“Sure.”

“So anyway, how old are your kids now?”

 

They talk for a good couple of hours. Volstagg squeezes him tight before sending him on his way.

“Friday at the Odeon. Come backstage, I’ll tell them to let you in.”

“I don’t know, man.”

“Just think about it, yeah?”

 

__________________________

 

There are no records stores like this one anymore. Not sure how long this one’s got left. Thor stops by often, every couple of days, and has a rummage at the back, where the vinyls and the rarities are, some memorabilia too. He’s not a collector, but he’s been known to fork out some of his hard-earned cash on autographed guitar picks and signed vintage records. Usually, he ignores the rack close to the entrance with the new releases and the current hits. Nothing for him there. He tries to ignore it today too, but there he is, there he always fucking is. He’s too fucking pretty and charismatic not to have his mug printed on the cover of every single record he’s ever released. He can pull the martyred romantic antihero look with flying colours, can’t he? Those electrifying green eyes follow him across the store, and stay fixed as he mindlessly flicks through the vintage stuff, like the goddamn Mona Lisa. Thor can feel them on the back of his neck, burning a groove there.

He stops flicking records. He’s not even looking. What the hell is he even doing here. Angry at himself, he’s about to leave. (Who are you even trying to fool. You know why you’re here.) He walks back, and picks up Serpent’s latest record off the shelf.

Thor is good friends with the owner, but at this time of the day it’s that kid at the till. Actually, he prefers the kid. If the owner saw him buying this record, he'd never hear the end of it.

“Not their best album if you ask me,” muses the kid, as he swipes the code and pushes a couple of buttons at the till.

“I didn’t ask you.”

“I mean, if you like this sort of overproduced glam rock style or whiney neoromantic shit,” continues the kid, as if Thor hadn’t said a thing. “I preferred their earlier stuff, kinda raw and grunge, that garage sound.”

“Like I said, I didn’t ask you,” snaps Thor. He grabs the box from the kid’s hand before he has time to slip it in the bag, snatches the card away too, and leaves.

 

____________________

 

The moment he crosses his front door, he hears a chirp from the living room.

“You’re on top of the bookcase again, aren’t you?” he grumbles.

Indeed, when he walks into the room, two pointy ears poke from the top of the tall furniture.

“Get down here right this minute, dumb fucker!”

 _Chirp_.

Thor shakes his head and goes to get the steps, grumbling all along. “You can’t, can you? How long have you even been up there? God almighty, I swear you must be the dumbest cat alive.”

Trickster is his usual shitty self when Thor has him in his hands. The moment he’s but one foot closer to the floor, he starts twisting and squirming, sinks his claws in, and jumps away, using Thor's flesh for traction. As if he's afraid of him, as if Thor had ever fucking done anything to hurt him. It’s been years, and this crazy fucker still doesn’t fully trust him. He whooshes to the bedroom, and now he’ll probably stay under the bed, in the hidey hole between the boxes, until it suits him.

Thor shakes his head with a sigh, and checks the scratches on his arms and hands. This will need cleaning up and some iodine or something. It will sting. He sighs again. He’s not even mad.

A sandwich, a beer, catching up on the day’s news on his phone, sports results, e-mails. The  square plastic case in his back pocket makes its presence felt at all times. He ignores it. He tells himself he’s only doing what he always does in the evenings, but he's putting it off, and he knows it.

TV on, a late night show, sound so low it’s practically on mute, Thor plops on the couch with another beer and gets the CD out. Feels warm in his hands, like it was alive. There he is again, staring straight at him and right into him, like he always did. Digitally enhanced irises, a perfidious, sinful green. In real life, as far as he remembers, they only look really green when the light is right (how Thor loved a rainy day), or when they’re red from a restless night, a hangover, smoke, crying. Otherwise, they are a greenish blue. Anyway, they’re always beautiful.

 

( _“Stop fucking staring.”_

_“Can’t. They suck me in.”_

_“Shut up."_

_Kissing him slowly, sure way to get Thor to close his eyes.)_

 

That throbbing lump of hot iron in his throat.

He throws the fucking CD box away and it lands somewhere on the rug. He rubs a pinch of skin between his eyebrows. It’s been fucking _years_ , goddammit. He refuses to fucking cry. But he has a sob already lodged in his chest, pushing to come out. It still makes him so sad.

A chirp and a thud, and Trickster’s weight on his stomach. Little paws climbing him up. He finds his spot over Thor’s shoulder, on the crook of his neck, and starts rubbing himself like mad, purring hysterically. He’s a noisy little bugger. Thor scratches the base of his tail; the cat arches sensually and pushes his ass up against his hand.

“You little slut,” he mumbles fondly, “you love it here, don’t you?”

After a while, the cat settles down to nap, his purr quieting down to soft breathing. He’s put on some meat now; he was a bag of bones in a sack of matted, spiky fur when he first decided to hang up his hat at Thor’s place. He had come in through the kitchen window (little muddy paw prints on the worktop), and rushed past him like a black exhalation when Thor was trying to chase him out. He hid for days in places in the apartment Thor hadn’t even realised were there before, until he gave up and accepted that he now had a cat. Or a cat had him. He started leaving food out, although he never even saw him for weeks. Thor would find his feet attacked in the middle of the night (and the fucker had sharp claws and teeth, and bit hard), or was ambushed and pounced on from the tops of tall furniture. Then, from one day to the next, the little devil spawn had become a chirping, purring, ankle-rubbing fiend, who would curl up on Thor’s stomach or on his shoulder whether he liked it or not, although in the beginning he would try to scratch his eyes out trying to escape, if Thor so much as tried to stroke him. Eventually the cat started to force his little soft head under Thor’s hand, determined to get a thorough fuss. He’s nasty to everyone but Thor, who can’t deny he sorta digs that. And he used to have himself pegged as more of a dog person…

 

Even from across the fucking room, he can feel those preternaturally green eyes staring at him.

It was never easy with Loki. There was a lot that was wrong about him, how he shut people out, snarky and mean, sharp tongue, quick wit, and always using those powers for evil. Then he wrote the most beautiful songs of love and loss, melancholy and yearning, heartbreak and loneliness, and Thor told himself that this was the true Loki, and fell head over heels in love with him. They were only kids back then, barely out of their teens. Thor had the time, and the emotional energy, and the mindspace, to relish a challenge.

Getting into Loki’s pants wasn’t difficult - not for Thor anyway. Getting anywhere else with him? That was a different story. But he was perseverant, and patient, and devoted, and he thought he was finally getting through the bramble maze. And then he became convinced that he had found the lonely prince in his tall tower at the heart of the labyrinth of thorns. He really thought he had reached him, that he had made Loki his. He thought what they had was real.

It was real to Thor, very fucking real. He loved him with his whole heart. And there were good times, alone together, away from it all, tumbling in the sheets, fucking like bunnies, laughing. When they were back in civilisation, the little shit took over the controls again, and what a mean, petty, nasty jerk he was, always full of suspicion, jealousy, and recriminations. There would be bickering, fighting, screaming, and Thor would tell himself that it was fucking pointless, that this was no way to live, and when Loki finally walked out on him for the umpteenth time, in a whirl of spite, yelling, and tears, Thor always swore to himself that this was it.

Invariably, they would then pine miserably for a couple of weeks, and they’d soon start exchanging lingering looks across the room whenever they bumped into each other (and the city seemed to shrink to a fucking street and a half when Thor was claiming to avoid Loki). And then Thor would swear that there was something different in those green eyes this time, that there had been growth, or lessons learned, or whatever he needed to hear, so that the moment Loki disappeared through the back door of that seedy bar (the very place where Volstagg had wanted to meet today, the gang’s old haunt), throwing one last smouldering look at him over his shoulder, Thor would feel it was alright to follow him outside, and crowd him against the wall, and kiss the living daylights out of him. Loki’s hands in his hair, under his clothes, fucking electric shocks up his spine, sparks wherever Loki touched. Falling into Thor’s bed again, fucking all night, laughing, just like the good old days.

And then Loki would write love songs so beautiful and moving that they brought tears to Thor’s eyes, and for a few weeks, sometimes even for a whole month or two, he’d know a happiness like nothing else before or since, and feel warm with more tenderness than he was able to express. How soft Loki was then, almost attainable, almost open. Or that’s what it would seem to Thor. He was a master at wishful thinking in those days.

Loki had dreams, Loki had talent, Loki was determined to make something out of himself. They formed a band, they played his songs. They haunted the clubs and dingy holes around town, Volstagg at the drums, Sif at the bass, Fandral the keyboard, Hogun anything that had a pipe to blow into, Thor the electric guitar, or whatever other thing with strings they laid their hands on. Loki could play (he was a very accomplished musician) but he’d be too busy singing and mesmerising the audience with his theatrics. He was an astounding performer. No matter in which state their relationship was, when they were on stage, Thor couldn’t take his eyes off him.

Twenty-three years old, a manager finds them. They start doing gigs out of town. The road life became an entirely new world of both fuck ups and joy, sometimes in such quick succession it was pretty much simultaneously; bottled up in a minivan, either snapping at each other, or making out like they were alone in the world. (Loki resting with his head on Thor’s lap, half awake; he opens his eyes, looks up, smiles at him. Thor’s heart skips a beat or too, smiling back. For that fleeting moment, everything's possible, even a happy ending for the two of them, and Thor's intensely, unspeakably happy. He's hooked on moments like this, on this feeling; he lives for the next hit.)

They cut a couple of albums in the garage of Thor’s mom and dad's old house, him and Loki producing, fighting like cats and dogs over every single fucking thing, and then bending Loki over the mixing table whenever the band took ten. 

They began to fill their venues. The manager got them into bigger places, and soon they filled those too. Twenty-six. They got a record deal with a big label.

“We need to talk,” Loki said, looking somewhere above Thor’s shoulder, as if he was out of there already.

Those fucking words, out of the blue. At first he thought Loki was joking. That’s not how it usually happened. There would be lots of screaming, things would be smashed, doors would slam. Nobody ever really said anything like, “we need to talk.”

The exact words Loki used escape him now, they were that vague. Thor gaped like a fish out of water.

“But, but why?” he remembers asking. He still cringes at that. How pathetic can you get?

“Things end,” said Loki, shrugging, still staring at his boots, glitter tips.

“The fuck does that mean?”

“God, Thor, does it matter why? Don’t make it so hard.”

Thor had snorted, in outrage. Hard? _He_ was making it hard?

There had been more words, Thor doesn’t really remember those.

“Fucking look at me in the eye at least,” was the last thing Thor had ever said to him.

Loki showed him the white of his eyes before he looked, as if Thor was a nuisance he was indulging in this only out of pity. Thor tasted humiliation and rage before the heartbreak came. But oh boy, when it did.

It was bad. He couldn’t look at their time together and tell himself there had been good times, and think of those; he was too bitter. But even through his rage and his resentment and his hatred, he missed him like nobody’s business. A Loki-less world, a Loki-less life, no chances of Loki on the horizon. His days piled up in front of him like a mountain to climb. And for what - was Loki at the top waiting for him? Then why bother. God, he pushed on, but it was hard. He cried so much, and then he cried some more. And he despised himself for it. He drank for the hangovers, to punish himself. So many years wasted on that jerk. (But even on the worst days, he couldn’t call them wasted. No, he had not wasted them; he had simply failed.)

Pals and co-workers would commiserate with him. “Can’t believe he tossed you out now that they’re going places.” Thor would hold on to that grudge to justify his enduring bitterness. He was allowed to hate Loki because of that, and be sore at him for the rest of his life if he wished. It was a shitty thing to do by anyone's standards. Eventually, he quit his job, moved to the other end of town, started Hammer Sounds, tried to get on with his life. Or made a half-assed attempt at it, rather. Tell Jane about it.

He tried to ignore Loki and his fucking music, but the city was proud of their talented, increasingly famous son. He was in the news a lot. One evening, the news of the local TV network proudly announced that Serpent, a homegrown band, had played at Wembley. (“Homegrown band,” hah. Only Volstagg was left by then. The rest were professional musicians on a quick rotation basis.) A short clip of the performance, with Loki in his full costume and makeup and feather boa and leather and furs, leading the audience in song. He spreads his arms wide under a dramatic light beam. He throws his head back, lets the wall of sound he’s conjured from the crowd soak him right through. Thor had thrown the remote at the TV screen hard enough to crack it. Jane had been there that night. Didn’t last long after that - she was very, very far from stupid. There were other reasons too, but never mind that now.

Then Loki started to appear in the news more and more often, for reasons only tangentially related to his music. Trashed hotel rooms, drunk and disorderly arrests, drug busts, indecent exposure. A trial for breach of contract. The rehab stints. Two weeks’ jail time. The overdose. The death rumours. The city wasn’t so proud anymore, but they still wouldn’t shut up about him.

And did Thor ever take any sick satisfaction in watching Loki’s life go down the drain? Did he ever allow himself to roll in a puddle of sweet revenge, like he had lusted for when the fucker walked out on him? Did he feel triumphant? Hell, no. A sucker till his dying day.

He looked at the CD on the rug. No, he wasn’t ready. He wasn’t ready to hear his voice again, he wasn’t ready to hear his words again. They had always been Thor’s downfall.

He was hearing them in his head anyway, one of the last songs they cut together.

 

_“believe in me_

_it’s not your fault_

_i am the fucking_

_king of lies_

_shit i’ve been crying_

_don’t look at me_

 

_i want you, i can’t_

_let’s play fighting_

_i see you go_

_you say you’d never_

_but i know better_

_let’s put this out_

 

_you were all_

_flesh to flesh_

_we played kissing like the grown ups_

_you said it’s not a game_

_i said tag you’re it_

_you used to follow_

 

_you were all_

_flesh to flesh_

_we played kissing like a pair of kids_

_shit i’ve been crying_

_you said it’s not a game_

_i didn’t answer_

 

_you were all_

_flesh to flesh_

_now you’re you and i’m myself_

_shit you’ve been crying_

_and i’m not playing_

_baby i’m out of here”_

 

_____________

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Because I had not written one comma of poetry in 15 years, I was a little bit rusty. Dorky suggested I rejigged the lyrics of existing songs. So, the lyrics are inspired (but heavily altered to suit) by a real song, written by Catalan singer-songwriter Adria Punti. It's called "Mmm quin fastic, veecs que bo" and it's beautiful. Look it up.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "So now Volstagg comes to Thor, and asks him to… what, ambush Loki? And then? Shake him by the stupid collar of his shirt, or jumpsuit, or chainmaille tank, or artfully arranged black feather boa, or whatever it is he wears these days, until he sees sense and gets himself into a clinic or something? What a great idea this is. How very likely to succeed. Not even Volstagg can possibly hope this is going to work. No, Thor isn’t here to help Loki with anything. And he’s not here for Volstagg either. Being completely honest with himself, which he should at least be trying to do at his wise old age, he knows he’s here for himself, to see it with his own two eyes. See him. And perhaps confirm how useless it is, how hopeless, and kill this for good. God knows he needs to put Loki behind him, and to his shame, he has to admit that he still hasn’t."

 

 

The gig is nearly finished when Thor gets to the venue, the biggest theatre in town. It’s Art Deco, a relic from better days, back when this place still produced something. He hears the dull thud of bass and drums as he approaches, feels it in his bones, ribcage. It rises as he gets nearer, so that he can almost feel it in the pavement under his feet. There’s a primeval feel to it, like an ancient rite, and he a wanderer approaching the ancestral place of cult. He loves rock concerts, goddammit. But to be at the eye of it, to be the one officiating the pagan ceremony while the worshippers at their feet are so eager to plunge into the frenzy — _that_ was power. 

Does he miss it a bit? The excitement, the buzz? Well, fuck, of course he does. It was a rush. Even on the more modest scale when he was in it. And for a moment, he can’t bloody help himself. He thinks, I’m so proud, baby, look at you. You had a dream, and there it is, you made it happen. It’s easier to feel this way about it all, almost fondly, when he doesn’t have to see Loki’s face as it is now, cut sharper, leaner, harder —because he’s older, whatever baby fat he ever had now long gone; because he’s airbrushed to the fucking skull to make his skin look angelic, supernatural, vampiric; and because he stares at the objective as if he’s about to eat it, or fuck it. The Loki in the posters, the one he cannot bear to look at, that was the Loki that finally broke up with him. Not that the previous incarnation he knew and loved was a lot sweeter, or less theatrical, or less vampiric, but at least he had seen him laugh, he had seen him sleepy, he had seen him cry. He had seen the freckles on top of his nose. Loki the rock star doesn’t do these things, does he? And he doesn’t have freckles.

He’s left it pretty much until the last minute, deciding whether to come here or not. Because what’s the point of it — what? Not helping Loki, that’s for sure. Loki was notoriously difficult to help, even when he gave a fuck about Thor’s opinion. He was always as stubborn as a specially bred type of mule, proud and arrogant to downright aristocratic levels, and he loved to go on and on about what a fucking mess he was, and how he always fucked up at everything and with everyone, but he did not want to hear advice or solutions. At least he didn’t want your pity either (he snarled viciously if you were stupid enough to offer some), he had plenty with his own. Thor doesn’t see how Loki could ever have improved in any of these departments. It’s not like he’s been living in retirement in a fucking monastery meditating on how to better himself.

Volstagg is a simple man. No, not simple like that — the other way. His wholesome way to abide in this world consists of speaking what he means, asking for help when he struggles, resting when he’s tired, calling you when he’s lonely or bored, and acting as if everyone else is as uncomplicated as himself, and honestly, fuck them if they aren’t. And let me tell you, Thor could see him living way past a hundred with that attitude, if only he didn’t care so much. So Volstagg sees Loki struggling, and what does he do? He sticks around in spite of, well, Loki, and if Thor knows his old friend a bit, he’s been babysitting his self-destructive rock star diva, making sure he makes it back alive after every binge of whatever variety, bailing him out after a number of arrests on assorted counts, and probably walking him to court and back; trying to get some food into him every now and again, for sure, and having Loki around at his place as often as he can drag him there, where his wife Hildy has a way of dealing with difficulties and rough times that’s just as simple, and even more forceful. Even in the good old days, the scoldings Loki would sit through at that house, force-fed to him alongside those hearty, spicy stews. How did Hildy manage that? Loki sits for no-one’s scolding, not since he discovered “or else what?” was an effective response to most reprimands, probably around the time his balls dropped. But Hildy even got him to finish his greens.

But none of these things are making much of a difference in the long run, clearly, so now Volstagg comes to Thor, and asks him to… what, ambush Loki? And then? Shake him by the stupid collar of his shirt, or jumpsuit, or chainmaille tank, or artfully arranged black feather boa, or whatever it is that he wears these days, until he sees sense and gets himself into a clinic or something? What a great idea this is. How very likely to succeed. Not even Volstagg can possibly hope this is going to work. No, Thor isn’t here to help Loki with anything. And he’s not here for Volstagg either. Being completely honest with himself, which he should at least be trying to do at this ripe old age, he knows he’s here for himself, to see it with his own two eyes. See _him_. And perhaps confirm how useless it is, how hopeless, and kill this for good. God knows he needs to put Loki behind him, and to his shame, he has to admit that he still hasn’t.

 

A bouncer gets the stage door for him when he knocks. He eyes him head to toe.

“Thor, right? End of the corridor, then left,” he says.

Thor wonders what Volstagg told them about him. He always called him “the Viking”. Well, Thor wears his hair short these days, and it looks a lot darker, so no more Viking for him. _It’s more professional_ , he says when people (his mother) ask him why he cut it, why won’t he grow it back again. “It was so beautiful, you looked so, so handsome.” (Loki liked it long, liked to braid it, weave little fucking flowers into it. Thor was drying it after a shower one morning, shortly after Loki left. It was taking forever, like it was mocking him. He took a pair of kitchen scissors to it. Then he cried. His mother demanded he’d have it cut properly at least, which he did. He told himself it was not spite but self-care, self-preservation even. If every fricking time he washed his hair he was assaulted by the goddamn memories, how was he ever going to get over him? God, that little shit didn’t break his heart, he fucking minced it with a meat grinder. No wonder Thor doesn’t even know how to go about putting it back together again.) 

He follows the roar to the main hall. He comes across lots of people, no-one looks at him twice. There’s techs, and people who are not techs. Security, assistants or interns of some description, and a cloud of nobodies hitching a ride on the band’s success, like limpets on the back of a whale. Long gone are the days when they had to do it all themselves. When they got the manager, which meant they were on the up, Darcy jumped on board, girl friday; with that unfazed air about her (she even seemed a bit high sometimes, she was that relaxed), she by herself did the job of ten of those minions. She worked as hard backstage as they did on it. Out of all of them, she was the one with the highest degree of immunity to Loki’s tantrums (Volstagg a close second) — she just didn’t give a fuck. Thor would have never thought she’d jump ship. Volstagg did care; in his own calm, fatherly way, he was always concerned and affected. Perhaps that was why Volstagg was still there, and she wasn’t.

Slowly, keeping to the shadows, Thor finds a spot in the wings all to himself. He stays towards the back, more or less aligned with Volstagg. He can see a sliver of the audience, the classic horseshoe shape of the sitting area, the ones on the stalls standing up. Metal barriers and security guys between the kids and the stage. Marks of success as measured by music industry standards all around.

If he pokes his nose a bit further out… There he is. Central, front of stage. Loki. His back, at least, broad shoulders, lean waist, long legs made to look even longer by the beam of light aimed at him, in tight (lick of paint) black jeans and a skimpy black tank with the band’s emblem in white. Thor spots that spectral white tattoo snaking down the nape of Loki’s neck and back. Pale as he is, you have to know it’s there to see it. And you have to be close up to know what it is. A secret tattoo in plain sight. Ah, Thor remembers… When they got off the stage after a concert, both smelling of sweat and smoke and beer and stale deodorant, salt on Thor’s tongue from licking those white lines. And it hits him now as if he’s feeling it, and he’s back in time, and fuck, highs like those he’ll never know again — the gigs, Loki — and it’s somehow devastating, the finality of it, and calming at the same time — it’s gone, it’s done, that was then, and this is now.

Except Loki is three fucking steps away, and Thor thought he’d never see him again, and it’s all surreal.

He hasn’t listened to the CD in the end, couldn’t make himself, so he doesn’t know this song. It’s rowdy, the guitars loud and roaring. Loki’s voice hissing and whispering, equal parts menace and seduction. After using the mike stand almost as a pole to dance around and make love to, stroking up and down with lewd suggestion, Loki starts to pace the stage. He crouches like a predator, long arms and hands clawed pulling the audience in. The kids reach back, screaming. They can’t touch him. Loki always relished that, the worshipping _and_ the teasing, him a god in a different dimension, his followers and believers fooling themselves for a moment that he was there for them, that they could almost, almost have him. But he wasn’t there for them. He was there for their screams, for their love, for the rush. All his, all his due, and never enough. So he courted it and got better and better at it, and look at him now, not just a mere professional, a consummate artist. He’s electrifying, larger than life. He seems one with the music and the craze, unselfconscious, lost in it. Perhaps it’s an act, or perhaps not. There is such a thing as true furor, true frenzy, and Loki may be riding it.

The song ends; the crowd roars. Loki is panting slightly — his hard, rushed breathing electronically amplified makes shivers run down Thor’s spine. And everyone else out there, for sure. You don’t have to have fucked him to think of sex just hearing him breathe, do you? You’re no more special than any of those kids out there. The past is as immaterial as those kids’ fantasies, might as well never have happened for all it counts in the end. (Thor has been punishing himself with thoughts like these for years. Doesn't work.)

Loki replaces the mike in its holder, walks towards the side of the stage (Thor’s side, his face in darkness) where a kid is waiting with a guitar. On the way there, Thor can see he’s swaying. On the way back, pick between his teeth, he kicks an amplifier that was in his way. Then he waves a hand towards the band. Y’all dismissed. The band members exchange looks. Volstagg just gets up and walks away from the drum kit (he’s the one who’d be more used to Loki). The rest, still puzzled, put down their instruments and follow suit. Loki has been fiddling with the guitar in the meantime.

Thor waits for Volstagg in his spot in the wings.

“Hey, you came!” whispers Volstagg when he spots him. He pats his shoulders but mercifully, he doesn’t hug him. He’s soaked.

“What’s happening?” asks Thor.

“No idea,” says Volstagg after a long sip of beer. “He likes to keep it interesting.”

Loki stands in front of the mike, adjusts it, plays a couple of chords to get the feel of it and the tone, tune it precisely how he likes it. His back is still turned to Thor and Volstagg, only his slim silhouette casting a long, tremendous shadow.

“This is my home town,” says Loki casually to the mike. The crowd cheer hysterically. Thor feels strange hearing his voice without the distortion of singing, even amplified like that. He always had that drawl — Thor called it morning voice, but it was an all-day thing. Sex voice, that’s what it fucking is. Loki doesn’t have another. He speaks again, and the crowd calms down immediately to listen. “I did all I could to get the hell out of it, but here I am again. You can take the boy out of the shit town, but you can’t take the shit town out of the… Actually, yes you can. God bless New York City. Why are you all even here? Anyway.” The crowd cheers again, laughs. Isn’t he hilarious, shitting on all of them and everything they know. 

Loki plays a couple of chords, and the crowd goes quiet. Then the song begins. It’s light, melancholy, the melody simple and clean, almost childish. The crowd recognises it at once, with a brief burst of applause and whistling. It must be one of the hits. The tune is so sweet, innocent even, and Loki’s voice warm, full of longing.

 

_“You said are they blue or green_

_i was still, my pulse was rushing_

_you smiled, the world stopped,_

_green you said, they’re green_

 

_and i never really told you_

_i probably should have_

_but i loved you there and then_

_it’s as simple as that_

 

_we were children i guess_

_we were not yet afraid_

_of my wish of being torn apart_

_your wish of tearing me_

 

_but why have i cried so much_

_it was oh so simple_

_next time i’ll get it right i swear_

_when i am a child again_

 

_i am telling you now_

_what i should have said_

_next time i’ll get it right i swear_

_when i am a child again_

 

Thor could feel Volstagg’s sly gaze on him, but couldn’t for the life of him tear his eyes off the lonely figure on stage, now in profile as he crouched to fiddle with the amplifier, aloof, above and beyond, while the crowd went insane with adoration. And Thor couldn’t shut his mouth, and couldn’t do a thing with the… what the fuck was that inside, crushing, burning. 

 

_______________

 

 

(“I’ve been wondering all night,” said Thor, putting his drink on the bar next to the young stranger’s. “Are they blue or green?” 

 

They were in the quieter part of the club, the dull thud of live music in the adjacent room. Thor had played there earlier with his band. He had been wanting to talk to this slim, pale, classy-as-fuck, beautiful stranger for fucking weeks, ever since the night he saw him play, but he had left it too late (bit daunted maybe), and when he decided to have a go, the boy had left. He had disappeared, and nobody could tell him his name or where to find him. He was stunning, unassailable, an ice-cold bitch, some said. Thor didn’t care. He promised to himself that, if he ever saw him again, he would not waste his chance. 

So when he spotted him there at the bar, his stomach had dropped through the floor; he had had to take several deep breaths before he had dared to approach, but this time, he would not let him go without trying.

He expected a puzzled reaction to his opening line (what the hell had he been thinking of, honestly; oh, right, he had not been thinking at all), but the boy only smirked with the corner of his mouth.

“You tell me,” said the boy, and lifted his face to the light for Thor to have a good look.

Scenting potential in the air, buzzing with anticipation and the thrill of the chase, Thor leaned into the boy’s space. His heart was beating hard, a feeling like cold metal in his chest from excitement and nervousness. He held that unblinking stare that cut fiercely, a laser beam, and felt more than saw the hint of a smirk in the boy’s hard, sexy mouth turn into a flirty smile. The electricity between them was there, the boy had felt it, and that smile said he was into it. The fucking rush of blood, the cartwheels in Thor’s stomach. This was going to happen.

Thor put on his best, cockiest, most seductive grin.

“Green,” he said, smiling as if he had bet money on it, “they’re green.”

 

Thor should have known Loki would be a dancer. By the time they were done inside, Thor felt thoroughly ravished already, just from those looks, from those moves. Then, when both were panting from exertion and sheer, burning lust, Loki had grabbed him by the collar of the shirt and dragged him outside. They made out against a wall in the parking lot until Loki’s mouth was a pink, ravaged mess. 

“Wanna go back to my place?” Thor had said, and he meant to sound cool, but he was clearly desperate. 

“On the first night? What kind of a boy do you think I am?” said Loki with amusement and pretend shock; both his hands were deep in the back pockets of Thor’s tight jeans.

“One of a kind,” said Thor, and meant it.

Loki had smiled, almost coy (oh that cute pout, Thor was in fucking flames).

“Where the hell did you come from?” Loki had whispered, leaning closer again, head tipped up for a kiss.

Thor had plunged in, mouth and tongue and teeth and fireworks, hands cupping Loki’s ass, Loki’s nails now dragging down his back.

“I’m from the future,” Thor muttered between kisses, as low and sexy as he could. “And I’m here to tell you that you end up coming home with me tonight.”

He had pushed his thigh between Loki’s and Loki rode it, with a moan, biting his lip.

“Ok, future boy,” sighed Loki, still rutting, while Thor was at his neck, “you win. Let’s go.”

 

 

“I want to fucking... tear you apart...!” Thor groaned into Loki’s hair later, as he fucked him. Loki had been riding him like a man possessed. Thor flipped them over when he was getting tired. 

Loki felt even better than he had dreamed. Thor was so drunk on it all he didn’t even fucking know what he was saying. He did remember repeating Loki’s name again and again in time with his thrusts, like a spell that bound them together. 

“Loki, Loki…”

“Y-yes, yes…” pleaded Loki, fists clenched tight in the sheets, ankles on Thor’s shoulders. “Thor… _ah_ … harder, harder…”

He was a screamer too. He had come in Thor’s hand to the sound of Thor’s neighbour banging loudly on the wall (it was like 4 a.m.).

 

They had whispered, they had laughed, muffled chuckles up close. They had kissed. They had looked at each other with something like awe, or maybe recognition. Are you feeling what I’m feeling? 

Loki wasn't there when Thor woke up. Truth be told, he hadn’t expected him to be. But he had left a phone number scribbled on a note stuck to Thor's front door. Thor called that very same day. 

"Hey, future boy." That feline drawl, that purr that gave Thor shivers...)

 

 

_____________

 

 

_“Forgive me I’d say_

_I forgive you, he’d say_

_Take me back I’d say_

_Come here now he’d say_

 

_I forgive you_

_I forgive you_

_I forgive you_

_Come here now_

_he speaks so sweetly in my dreams_

_and in my dreams he’s still mine_

 

_(oh baby baby, oh my love,_

_have you forgiven and moved on?_

_i’m not as kind, i’m not as good_

_i cannot possibly forgive._

_what i did to myself_

_god but that was cruel)_

 

_Take me back_

_Forgive_

_have it all_

_break my fall_

_oh my love, oh my love”_

 

“Goodnight, shit town, until the next one,” says Loki without any particular feeling, while the crowd is still raging over the last song, blacker and sadder and gloomier, and a very strange note with which to end the night. They will not be easily dismissed after this. They are not moving, convinced of course this cannot be the end.

But Loki is clearly done. He walks out of the stage, hands the guitar over, head low, gestures sharp. Somebody approaches him, he barks something at them. Still nothing but a silhouette to Thor, a shadow in the shade, he grabs a bottle of water from an assistant as he walks past and disappears into the maze of corridors and small cubicles of the backstage, letting somebody else clean up his mess.

And Volstagg is still staring at him, subtle as a turd in the snow, and Thor finally looks back.

“I told you,” says Volstagg.

Thor doesn’t really have anything to throw back. Or a voice, for that matter. He doesn’t know what to think, or fucking _how_. He’s too full of feeling. He used to fantasise about something like this. Fantasy and reality feel entirely different. In his fantasies, he knew what to do (either walk away with dignity or generously show mercy and let Loki come back, depending on the day he’d been having), but right now, real world, real time, he doesn’t have a clue what to do. Run for your fucking life, a little voice inside is begging. If there was ever a bad moment to see Loki again since he fucking walked out on you, and there’s been fucking thousands, this, after those songs, must be the goddamn worst.

“Shall we?” says Volstagg above the roar of the crowd (the kids are getting impatient).

“Shall we what?” snaps Thor, second hand anxiety over a dissatisfied audience.

“Go say hi.”

“You’re fucking nuts!”

“Come on,” says Volstagg, one big, hot paw on Thor’s shoulder. “You made it this far. What’s the worst that can happen?”

Famous last words. 

 

It’s probably fair to say that there was never a chance of Thor leaving the theatre tonight without seeing Loki first, face to face. And Volstagg probably knows that, because this is hardly the first time Thor comes back crawling. Which is embarrassing, and humiliating, and also true as the Northern star.

Not that Thor expects to get anything from it — certainly nothing good or positive or constructive. When did he ever. He braces himself for an icy reception, a scatter of standoffish words, for Loki’s nose turned up as he clings to his pride and his reasons, whatever they are, always more sacred and more important than being civil and mature and mending bridges with the man he’s supposed to want a life with. Because the bridge-mending thing is Thor’s job, and it always was, and dammit, he’s already getting furious with Loki. Which is reason eight fucking thousand and one why they were such a fucking godawful mess together, and so fucked up and terrible for each other. Pride and dignity, scoring points, winning, that was more important than getting the fuck on with their lives with the one they loved. It wouldn’t be the first time Thor concludes Loki did him a fucking favour. Not that he feels any better for it. 

In any case, those two fucking songs are still dancing with each other in Thor’s head (weird harmonies, quite lovely), and his steps shuffle him back to Loki, as they always did — with his head low, or kicking and screaming, what difference does it make? Loki on his altar demanded he sacrificed his pride and crawled back to him, and he grudgingly said, fuck you, Loki, but he usually did. There was not much more dignity in melting to a puddle when it was Loki taking the first step, and at least if it was Thor, he felt he had the moral high ground. And since that was ammunition for next time and Thor would be needing it, there you go. One can be on one’s knees begging and deal a helluva lot of recrimination and reproach at the same time.

Thor stands to one side as Volstagg knocks on the door. 

“Are you decent?”

“Sure I’m fucking decent,” comes Loki’s voice from inside, a grumble.

“He always says that. It’s from a film,” mouths Volstagg.

I know, thinks Thor, one of his favourites; we watched it together a dozen times.

Volstagg has pushed the door open. Loki is still in his tight black jeans and tank, by the sink, face buried in a towel (has he been letting cold water run on it as he always used to after a gig). 

“Hey, kiddo,” says Volstagg as he steps in, “look what the cat brought in.”

Loki puts down the towel and turns towards them. Thor swallows. 

The light in the changing room is dingy and dim, but Loki’s pupils are like pinheads. He’s lit.

“Oh my sweet dear jesus christ our lord and saviour,” exclaims Loki, expression open, surprise and joy unbridled, the sunshine blasting through between a parting of clouds. It takes Thor’s breath away.

Loki mindlessly drops the towel and in two strides he’s standing in Thor’s face, eyes wide, mouth hanging open, taking stock of his presence, or his very existence. And then he jumps to Thor’s neck like a child wanting to be carried, and hugs tight. Thor’s breath is not coming back anytime soon.

“I’ll leave you boys to it,” says Volstagg with a wink.

Thor is about to tell him to wait up, but his mouth is suddenly full of Loki. There’s teeth and tongue and those thin, unyielding lips, going at his ravenously. Before he knows it, Thor is returning it with interest. Their mouths come together as perfectly as if not a day had passed since the last time they kissed, and it’s heady, overwhelming, and yes, Thor is feeling it, and how. But after a moment, the present reasserts itself; the scent is just slightly off, and the heat of it is feverish in a sickly way. It shakes Thor out of it. His brain is clearing. What the fuck.

“Loki,” he mumbles between kisses, trying to push Loki away.

“Fine, no kissing then,” Loki whispers. And drops to his knees and goes for Thor’s flies.

“Loki!” says Thor laughing, trying to hold his hands, his wrists, anything, hold him away. “Stop it, you’re high.”

“I think I’m even higher than I thought. Are you a hallucination?” purrs Loki playfully (his voice coffee and caramel), twisting his wrists to get rid of Thor’s grip, as he keeps trying for his zip. 

Thor chuckles against his better judgement. Loki is a whirlwind. It’s like being in the grip of a bunch of kittens in the mood for games. Hard to stay mad. With his wrists held, Loki rubs his face on Thor’s crotch, which is clearly not immune. Loki pushes against his hand when Thor, still laughing, tries to shove him off. He shakes Thor’s hand off and presses his nose, his mouth, his face, against the growing bulge in Thor’s jeans.

“God, you still smell so fucking good. Let me…” Loki’s teeth press on Thor gently.

“Baby, stop, you’re not yourself…” 

“Precisely,” says Loki.

Thor sobers up. Grabs him by the elbows and pulls him up to his feet. Loki’s drowsy, his eyes heavy, pinpricks for pupils, off his head with god knows what. And now his eyes are falling shut, and he’s dropping to the side, falling free.

“Hey, hey…” Thor holds him, Loki’s entire weight in Thor’s arms for a moment. Then consciousness vaguely returns, Loki blinks his eyes open, sees who it is, and wraps his arms around Thor’s neck, dead weight, and burrows his face in the crook of Thor’s neck (shiver), clinging tight. And Thor clings tight too, because being in his arms like that, full of need, open down to his core, is all Loki ever had to do to disarm him. Why didn’t he do it more. Thor would have wanted him to.

“Loki…?” Thor says softly.

“Take me home,” a weak, exhausted whisper, in supplication. “Please, take me home…”

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So this time I pick-pocketed Lorca ("why have i cried so much... when I am a child again",) and Elvis Costello ("and I loved you there and then, it's as simple as that"), and I've been re-reading lots of poetry to get me in the mood... 
> 
> (And worry not, Dorky, I have not forgotten Poison & Wine.)


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "Somehow, somewhere, for some reason, Thor has put himself in this situation, whereby a man-sized koala who used to be his boyfriend has his arms and legs wrapped around him and hums a song while Thor carries him up the stairs to his apartment, huffing and puffing under his weight, which is not inconsiderable for such a skinny-looking fucker."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Been a while, eh? 
> 
> in the previous chapter, Thor went to the concert and Loki threw himself at him. In this exciting new update we find out Thor never managed to push him off. 
> 
> Mentions of non-con, as part of the many fucked up shenanigans Loki gets up to (too passed out to consent kind of thing).

 

Somehow, somewhere, for some reason, Thor has put himself in this situation, whereby a man-sized koala who used to be his boyfriend has his arms and legs wrapped around him and hums a song while Thor carries him up the stairs to his apartment, huffing and puffing under his weight, which is not inconsiderable for such a skinny-looking fucker.

“You know, there are tough audiences, good audiences, warm audiences, and then there’s the horny, slutty crowd we had today. They couldn’t get enough, could they?” muses Loki by his ear. 

He’s been uttering nonsense in the car all the way over from the concert hall. A drive which, by the way,  Loki spent with his head resting on Thor’s shoulder, one long arm stretched out the passenger’s window so that his hand could feel the breeze, acting all mellow and purry. The fucking _dejà vu_ sensation had Thor feeling something between pissed off and completely disarmed.

They’ve made it to the landing of his apartment. Panting, Thor fumbles blindly with his keys. He can’t see where the goddamn lock is – his ex-boyfriend’s ass is too fucking round and plump and it’s getting in his line of vision.

“I think I went off key during the mid-section of _Monster_. Do you think they noticed?” drawls Loki right by his ear. He’s completely off his head. From the scraps of slurred speech in the car, Thor is pretty sure right now Loki doesn’t even fucking know what year this is. Which would enrage him no end, except Loki is being unacceptably cute about it. His eyes are closed and he looks and sounds tired, but in a blissful kind of way. Once upon a time, Thor would have thought of this mood as ‘cuddly’. 

“I don’t know,” grumbles Thor, not in a cuddly mood at all. Loki is very fucking heavy by now, and Thor’s arms are throbbing.

“We need to work on the riff in _Sudden Twilights_. It’s booooring…” yawns Loki.

“Okay,” mumbles Thor. He has no idea what he’s talking about. It’s not one of _their_ songs. (Thor’s riffs might be many things – god knows he’s no Jimmy Hendrix – but Loki never called his stuff boring.)

He thinks he’s found the lock now.

“The new shit went down well, don’t you think?,” mumbles Loki distractedly. “Maybe we need to rejig the order.” 

“The last couple of songs especially,” mutters Thor, mostly to himself.

“Hm? What did we play?” 

“You don’t remember, of course,” sighs Thor. 

Loki giggles like a silly boy. The lock gives. Hooray.

“I may be a liiiittle bit high,” sniggers Loki, and he whispers, “Don’t tell Thor.”

Thor fumbles on the wall, finds the switch, turns on the light in the hallway. 

“Oh my god!” gasps Loki suddenly. “What the fuck weird shit have you got yourself into!”

“What?” jumps Thor, alarmed.

“These scratches on your neck! Did I do that?!”

Thor almost laughs now. He starts to carry Loki along the corridor to the bedroom.

“It was the cat,” he says.

“When the frickity hell did we get a cat?” asks Loki. “I thought you said we travel too much to have a pet!” He’s indignant.

“We _did_ travel too much,” says Thor, now turning on the bedroom light. “And you didn’t really want a pet rat. You just wanted to be able to say you owned a pet rat because you thought it was cool.”

“Or a ferret. Or a marten,” mutters Loki.

Blinded by Loki's puffy hair, Thor maneuvers towards the bed. He steps carefully, trying not to trip on the pile of dirty clothes he knows is there somewhere, from when he changed in a rush, after deciding at the last second to go to the concert, and judging the baggy jeans and shabby sweatshirt he’d been wearing not up to scratch.

His knees hit the bed. Bingo. He tries to unhook Loki from his neck, and peel him off without both stumbling and falling in a heap onto the mattress, which would be awkward. 

“It would have spent half its time at my mom’s,” he’s saying, even though the entire conversation is absurd. “It wasn’t fair on her, or it.”

“I would have named it Thelonius Aloysius Mus. It would have been hilarious.” Loki giggles like a silly little boy again. He seems so happy. And so plastered. Damn, he's cute.

“Yeah, nonstop fun,” says Thor grumpily. “Specially for me. I would have been stuck cleaning up the cage.”

Loki has slid off him and onto the bed. He stretches his arms to full wingspan, with a groan of relief, and throws himself back. 

“Anyway, I had you for a dog person,” he whispers, his eyes closed. He looks ready to go to sleep, except that his legs are still hooked around Thor’s calves.

“I didn’t go looking for him,” explains Thor, as if he owes him a reason. He squirms to get free from Loki’s legs. “He just came in one day and decided he lived here.”

“Not surprised,” sighs Loki, finally releasing him, and letting his legs dangle over the mattress. “It smells so good in this place.” 

He’s sprawled on the bedcovers, eyes shut, relaxed, boneless, as if the mattress is sucking him in. Thor turns the big light off using the switch by the bed. Too harsh. He examines the situation: one life-sized, snoring Loki flat on his back on the bed, fully dressed in second-skin black jeans and massive, chunky boots, complete with chains. At least those will have to come off. It will take a while; his ex-boyfriend has always had a thing for clothes with an utterly unnecessary excess of laces, be it on footwear or kinky corsets. Apparently, he still does. These go all the way up to Loki’s shapely knees. Thor tries not to remember Loki in one of his corsets, or the rest of the stuff that came with them. He fails spectacularly, sighs, and sets to work.

“Hey, handsome,” drawls Loki in the darkness.

Thor is startled. He thought Loki was out for the night.

“Hey,” he says. He has managed to loosen the laces, and is now tugging and pulling at the boots. With Loki as deadweight, it’s a lot harder. “Help me out here.”

Loki pulls his way, Thor the opposite way, until they work the boot off. One down, one to go. Thor’s eyes are getting used to the darkness, the moonlight beginning to draw contours and shapes into view for him. 

With Loki’s help, they work the second boot off as well. As Thor puts them out of the way (if he trips on those he’s going to break a toe), he hears Loki squirming on the bed. When Thor turns to cover him with the blanket, he realises Loki has unbuttoned his jeans and pushed them below his butt, and is now raising a leg in his direction, expecting Thor to help him out of his pants too. He nudges him with his socked foot. At least he’s wearing underwear, for once.

“Pretty please,” Loki says, grinning like an angel, pearly whites sparkling in the moonlight. His eyes are still closed.

Thor sighs, and gets down to the ungrateful business of peeling those indecently tight jeans off those indecently long legs.

“Has anyone ever told you your legs are just too fucking long,” he grumbles, when he honestly feels for a moment he’ll never fucking get them off.

“I’ve been called ‘excessive overall’,” mutters Loki. So he _is_ listening, even with his conscience floating far afield in the land of Illegal Highs. 

“There you go,” Thor sighs again, this time in relief, when he finally gets the goddamn hems over his ankles. While he’s there, he takes off Loki’s socks too. He knows Loki despises and abhors socks in bed. 

Come to think of it, he knows lots of things Loki despises and abhors. Lots of things he loves. Things he lost, things he’s put behind him. How he takes his coffee. That it’s pancakes rather than waffles; croissants rather than muffins. That he likes to sleep in late. That he cries at fucking 1950s melodramas. That out of snobbery he tried to get into Russian classic novels, failed to get beyond the first few chapters of _War and Peace,_ and was awfully humiliated about it. That he has seen _Grease_ and _Victor/Victoria_ about one hundred times. That he can’t stand Andrew Lloyd Webber, and wished he didn’t laugh at Austin Powers films, but does. Thor knows his morning routine in the shower, his evening routine before he goes to bed, little things Loki himself probably doesn’t realise he repeats in the same order every time. Things Loki doesn’t know of himself, things he doesn’t want to see or face, but someone who loved him would have no problem spotting. That hating his father doesn’t mean he doesn’t love him too, and miss him. That he did not survive unscathed that household he grew up in. He either uses that for drama, or pretends nothing bothers him at all. Either way, he’s not honest with himself about it – or anyone else, for that matter. That he feels guilty for how he treated his mother, even though he shouldn’t, because what’s a fourteen-year-old full of anger to do with someone intent on drinking herself to death. That he’s nowhere near as good as he thinks at hiding his feelings, and often he’s pretty much transparent as glass. That Thor was onto him the whole time, always, from the very beginning, and fucking loved him more the more he learned, and felt closer to him because of it all, entwined like roots underground by the buried feelings Loki denied and Thor wanted to embrace and make his business. That Loki didn’t have to hide, didn’t have to lie, didn’t have to pretend all this shit in his life didn’t matter. That it matters to Loki, and because of that, it mattered to Thor.

And it’s too fucking much. It’s all coming back to him in painful glimpses. This could be any night five years ago. It shouldn’t hurt so much, and it’s fucking unfair that it does. The longing. It’s pathetic. Thor wants to be angry, shake himself out of this stupid surge of nostalgia turning everything sweeter than it ever really was, but he just can’t. The sweetness is laced with something that clutches at his heart and squeezes, and makes Thor’s eyes water and his heart drip with honey.

Loki seems asleep again, and in the moonlight, his pallor only appears more worrying, cheekbones sharper than ever. He looks ill, and older, and fragile. He lies there unmoving in his tight tank top with the band’s emblem and his black underthings, utilitarian, fit for purpose, no frills. Thor remembers him in lace and silk and velvet ribbons, something he’d never thought he’d enjoy in a man. Loki forced him to learn a thing or two about himself, didn’t he? 

He throws the comforter over him; he tucks him in. He can’t help that the gesture comes out tenderly. How is it even done, tucking somebody in carelessly?

“When did we get a cat, remind me,” slurs Loki in the darkness. 

Thor smiles. He really fucking shouldn’t. Can’t help it.

“Rest,” he says.

A hand snatches his shirt. 

“Don’t go,” begs Loki in a tiny, sleepy mumble. 

“I’ll go get you some water,” says Thor.

“Stay. Just until I fall asleep,” begs Loki. He’s twisting a corner of Thor’s t-shirt around his finger and he’s pouting. He looks eight years old. 

Thor sighs once more and sits on the bed next to him. Loki rolls on his side, curls up. Fumbles in the dark for Thor’s hand until he finds it, and holds it between both of his. Thor feels a knot burning in his throat.

“Have your wicked way with me, I’m begging you,” whispers Loki, barely audible, his eyes closed. 

“Hush,” says Thor. He doesn’t know how his free hand ended up stroking Loki’s hair. 

“I missed you.”

“You’re high.”

Loki pushes his head into the palm of Thor’s hand, much like an overgrown cat. 

“You’re going to hate me so much tomorrow for all the things you’re letting me hear tonight,” mutters Thor.

“Then we’ll be even, sort of,” whispers Loki.

Thor feels a choke.

“I don’t hate you, baby,” he whispers.

He’s not sure if that’s true. He’s not sure if he means it. And more than anything, he doesn’t know if he hopes Loki has heard it or not. 

He presses a long kiss onto Loki’s forehead before he walks out of the room. He doesn’t have a fucking clue how that happened either.

 

He sleeps on the couch. Or rather, he tosses and turns a lot, and lies there with his eyes open. The ceiling could use a fresh coat of paint. Trickster tries to use him as a heat source a couple of times, but soon gives up. He knows hopeless when he sees it, clever little fucker.

 

________________________

 

 

Loki sleeps the day away. Thor pops his head in every now and then, mainly to check that he’s breathing. He finds him sprawled exuberantly in a different position every time. Can you believe there was a time Thor sort of liked to wake up covered in arms and legs, and that being cornered to a sliver of mattress because Loki was taking over the rest of the bed actually made him laugh? Neither can Thor.

He leaves a jug of water and a glass on the bedside table, and a couple aspirin.

 

 

Around lunchtime, he gets a text from Volstagg: “ _Morning love doves_ ”. Thor calls back straight away.

“He’s still fucking passed out in my bed. What the hell is he on?”

Volstagg laughs, but there’s no cheer there.

“ _Pupils big or small?”_

 _“_ Small.”

 _“Opiates of some sort, I believe._ ”

Thor gasps.

“Jesus fuck, opiates?” He doesn’t say what he’s thinking ( _Heroin?! What the fuck?!_ ), just in case he’s right. He doesn’t want it confirmed. “Will he get the shakes when he wakes up or something?”

 _“Nah, unlikely. He’s a recreational user, believe it or not. His mood might be a problem, though._ ”

“Not that he ever needed drugs for that.”

Volstagg laughs again.

“ _So, what happened? Wink-wink, nudge-nudge._ ”

“Nothing fucking happened,” protests Thor. “He’s a fucking mess. Why would you wish this on me?”

“ _I’m a romantic. I believe in the power of love to heal and mend.”_

Thor huffs, still not ready to joke about it. (It’s been five years. How much longer?)

“ _Hey, be nice to him, alright?_ ” says Volstagg. “ _Yes, he is a dickhead, but he’s our dickhead. He only means fifteen to twenty percent of what he says._ ”

“Don’t I know it,” growls Thor.

“ _Give me a shout if you need help. Remind him second gig is tomorrow._ ”

“He’s not going to sleep here tonight. Not again,” declares Thor.

“ _When have I heard this before…_ ” laughs Volstagg, benign father figure.

“Sometimes you’re a crap friend, dude,” groans Thor.

“ _Smooches from Hilde. She wants you to drop by for some of her stew. Not a euphemism. Well, at least I hope it’s not. Although I’d understand._ ”

“Get out. Tell her thanks from me. Talk later.”

“ _Sure man. Laterz._ ”

 

____________

 

 

Thor’s spent the day cleaning the apartment and doing the laundry, his usual Saturday routine. Loki sleeps through the vacuum cleaner, some pottering in the kitchen, and a spell of noisy toilet scrubbing (the goddamn curtain bar always fucking drops, the rubbery things at each end are old as fuck, worn out and cracked; the bar is rusty; the whole thing needs changing, but Thor never gets round to it).

Thoughts do haunt Thor’s mind, questions which he doesn’t want asked but with answers he can clearly see in his head, like keen students in a classroom anxiously raising their hands in the air, legs bouncing with anticipation, waiting with bated breath. _Me me me, ask me!_ It’s not like Thor doesn’t know what they’ll say. Questions about Loki’s songs, about Loki’s words, about Loki’s actions. What is he even doing in town again? Does he miss Thor, like Volstagg believes? Is there a plan, or he's just, you know, fucking about? Is Loki there to actually try and get Thor back, is that it? Because, whoa, some thought there. And what does Thor feel about _that_? He doesn't really know the answer, apart from the bit where he screams  _no_ , and _run!_  But god help him, he’s not running, he’s not going anywhere, is he?

Every step around the apartment that day, he takes with Loki’s ghostly presence hovering over his shoulder, hanging there like a question mark, a silent observer of Thor’s life without him. It’s a very smug presence, let me tell you. It has a right to be smug, because fucking look at this pitiful, lonely mess. That Loki is a mess too, you say? Yeah, well, but he’s also a rock star, it’s sort of expected. 

Five years ago, when Thor was trying to get himself out of the pit of despair and self-loathing Loki’s little vanishing act had left him in, he would look into the future and swear to himself he’d fucking show Loki what he had passed on. He was going to make something worthwhile out of himself. This is _not_ the future Thor had projected. He has nothing to show for himself, nothing he can throw in Loki’s face. All the little things he usually manages to take pride in (from being a functional adult, to his small but reasonably successful studio, which he built from scratch all by his little self), today amount to fuckall and change. And on top of everything else, he can’t deny the fucking truth staring him right in the face; that when all is said and done, Thor is still carrying a torch for this asshole. He’s _humiliated_. 

Then again, he’s not the one all but begging to get back together, through music and lyrics and suspicious homecomings and a tongue loosened by drugs. He’s not the one at Loki’s feet blabbering “take me home.” He should count that as a win. If only he liked to play this shit game anymore, that is. As it is, all he can think is, “what if?”

It’s a hugely dangerous position to be in, he knows it. He even considers making himself scarce until Loki leaves. He won’t, though. He wants answers. Why does he want them for? God knows. Pride? Closure? Is he playing the shit game after all? 

He should leave. This can’t do anyone any good. 

He stays right where he is.

 

____________

 

Thor’s had dinner and he’s now flicking through the news on his tablet with Trickster beside him on the couch, when he hears the shuffle of steps on the corridor. Trickster whooshes away and Thor tenses up, alert. Moment of truth.

Then Loki is there, still in nothing but his tank top and tight black boxers, his face sallow, sickly pale, still beautiful under that bird’s nest that’s his black messed up hair. He scratches his balls, half opens one eye. Zeroes in on Thor, and his eyes widen.

“I thought it was a dream,” he drawls, stretching his arms, arching his back with a groan. “Or a really weird trip.”

“I know the feeling,” mutters Thor.

“Did we fuck?” says Loki.

Thor gives him a look.

“Good evening to you too,” he says, sarcastic.

“Did we?”

“ _Of course_ we did not fuck,” says Thor, indignant. “If nothing else, you were in no condition.”

“Oh, please,” yawns Loki. “Wouldn’t be the first time I come to with a dick up my ass, belonging to a guy whose name I never even bothered to learn in the first place.”

Thor’s jaw drops, he’s aghast.

“Oh, shock-horror!” scoffs Loki. “You weren’t so appalled all those mornings you woke up with your dick in my mouth.”

“That was fucking different!” protests Thor.

“Really? How.”

“Well, for one, we had fucking discussed it! And for another, you and I…”

Loki rolls his eyes at him. Thor wants to fucking deck him. Why are they even talking about this.

“Well, it’s been lovely seeing you again,” says Loki, another groan as he stretches some more. "Thanks for putting me up for the night, and thanks for the pills, very kind.” He doesn’t sound grateful, he sounds sarcastic, and Thor tastes metal. “Where are all my my clothes? And the rest of my shit? I need my phone. Or you get me a cab. ...Please, I mean.”

“No,” grits Thor.

“Beg pardon?” 

“You’re staying here until we’ve talked.”

“What?”

“You heard me.”

Loki gives him _that_ look, which Thor knows well, and if he had never had to face it again, it wouldn’t be late enough.

“I can hear alright,” grants Loki, pedantic. “I’m not quite sure I understand you, though.”

“I said you’re not leaving until we’ve talked,” declares Thor.

Loki rubs the pinch of skin between his eyes.

“Oh god,” he grumbles, supremely put upon. “Listen, darling, I have a splitting headache, I have a concert tomorrow night, and I do not want to _talk_.”

“Tough shit,” says Thor. “Because you owe me.”

“Owe you?” snorts Loki. “Owe you what?”

“A fucking explanation!” And before Loki plays dumb again, Thor expands. “Why the fuck did you walk out on me like that?!”

“Really? Right now? After all this time?” says Loki, as if he can’t believe his ears. As if Thor is pathetic. Which he probably is. But he’s also very fucking angry and stubborn, and if it pisses Loki off to be confronted with this today, all the better.

“Yes, now,” says Thor, cool tone hiding an overheating nuclear reactor underneath.

“Fuck’s sakes, Thor, it was fucking years ago!” whines Loki, exasperated. “Get the fuck over it!”

“Oh, ain’t that cute! Remind me again, who was the one throwing himself into my arms and begging me to _take him home_ last night?”

“Oh my god, is that what this is about? I was high as a proverbial kite! I didn’t even fucking know who you were!”

“Oh, you’re so full of bullshit,” spits Thor.

“Listen, believe what you like, whatever makes you happiest. Just… where are my fucking things.” He starts to look around; his gestures are tetchy, with a frantic pace. 

Thor is on to him. He renews his attack. It feels way too good not to push Loki into the corner, since he’s making it so easy.

“What was all that shit about yesterday,” he asks.

“What shit,” says Loki, still looking around, jittery, definitely avoiding Thor’s eyes.

Thor scoffs. As if Loki doesn’t know.

“‘ _Forgive me, Take me back’_? ‘ _In my dreams he’s still mine_ ’?”

“It’s only a stupid song! And you’re so fucking vain. Who said it was about you?” Loki’s full-on panicking now, paper-white. 

Thor can feel it on him, the terror. He’s busted, exposed, he's desperate to get himself out of here. Thor is not getting through to him, Loki won’t let him. They can’t do it, can they? They just never figured out how. And just like that, Thor’s thirst for blood disappears. If it didn’t hurt so much, he might almost pity him. Both of them.

Thor begins to nod heavily to his own unspoken questions, feeling so, so tired. He always knew the answers anyway. They can keep this up all day, and they’ll never move one inch. Nothing’s changed. With Loki, nothing ever does. He’s so fucking sad. He tries to be angry instead.

“Fine,” he hisses. “Fine. That’s all I needed to hear. Here’s your fucking phone,” he grabs it from the mantelpiece where he placed it earlier this morning, throws it at Loki. “Get your own fucking cab.”

Thor picks up his own keys and wallet and leaves, with a door slam.

 


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “May I come in.” Loki takes off his sunglasses, plays with them nervously in his hands. His gaze never reaches above Thor’s shoulders. “Please.”
> 
> “What for.”
> 
> “I’d like to talk to you.”
> 
> Thor scoffs. “Now you want to talk.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Look, I warned you, okay? grumblegrumble*sorry*grumble

 

Tuesday. Loki is at the door of Hammer Studios in his vintage furs, his supersized ‘off-duty celebrity’ sunglasses, and his artfully tousled hair. Beneath, silk and leather, sleek and sharp. Glamorous, expensive, stunning.

“What the fuck are you doing here?” grunts Thor. Loki’s beauty fucking affronts him; he stands at the door, blocking his path.

“May I come in.” Loki takes off his sunglasses, plays with them nervously in his hands. His gaze never reaches above Thor’s shoulders. “Please.”

“What for.”

“I’d like to talk to you.”

Thor scoffs. “ _Now_ you want to talk.”

Loki’s eyes flutter, as if instead of words, Thor had waved a fist in his face. He takes a little breath, as if for courage.

“I wanted to… The other day, I… I was hungover.”

Thor continues to glare coldly at him. _Try harder_.

“Listen, Thor…” He sighs. He gives up. He _begs_. “Don’t fucking make me do this in the street. Please.”

Thor considers this for a moment. He should really close the door right in Loki’s face, shouldn’t he? But when has he ever. He turns his back and walks in, knowing Loki will follow. He hears the door click shut behind him.

There is a small, mostly empty reception area, which he doesn’t really need, but was already there when he got this place; then a hallway, then a sitting room leading to the insulated recording studio, the control room, and the computer room where he does most of the admin stuff. He’s decorated the place with all the posters and photos and the few bits of memorabilia he’s collected through the years, all nicely framed and displayed so that the studio didn’t end up looking like a teenager’s room - his own teenage room, to be precise. The furniture is sparse, and there are no windows (partially what made the place so suited to his needs, good sound insulation, even without the further soundproofing improvements he added), but still the light is pleasant in this area, thanks to the wide skylight central in the ceiling; also, the couches are a lot more comfortable than they seem. He knows because he’s slept here a few times (sometimes he has very tight deadlines, other times he just couldn’t be bothered); but not anymore, not since Trickster came in through the kitchen window. The potted plants add a nice touch. Loki was the one with the green thumb back in the day, but Thor has managed to keep these alive until now, which is more than he can say for any other relationship he’s attempted since he opened up for business. 

The place needed one hell of a lot of work when Thor first got it, which is why he was able to afford it to begin with, but he’s done a good job with it, and now it looks, well, professional. Most of the time, he’s proud of it. Right now, though, he feels kinda shaky. Loki is used to top international standards, isn’t he? _You don’t give a fuck about his opinion,_ he tells himself. 

It’s hard to tell what Loki thinks most of the time anyway. Right now, he is examining an autographed photo of Stephen Daldry, inherited from Thor’s übercool uncle, Heimdall. It was in Thor’s special box all the time Loki and him lived together (they never really had a place roomy enough to put Thor’s junk on display, not when the shelves for Loki’s books and DVDs took up all the available wall space), but the photograph must ring a bell for Loki, from when he helped Thor move out of his mom and dad’s house, and into their first apartment, that shithole roach hotel by the railroad, the one they were forced to evacuate before the lease was over, because bugs and suspicious mould, upon which Loki blamed his morning sneezing fits and alleged breathing problems (“ _I’m a singer, Thor, I can’t fucking live like this!_ ”). God, they managed to be so happy _and_ scream at each other so much, those first six months under the same roof. Nobody thought they’d make it through the year. Then again, considering there were at least three big rows that Thor remembers right now off the top of his head, which landed his sorry ass back to his parents for a week at a time, on top of the many nights he spent in the couch, it’s arguable that they had _not_ made it through the year. In any case, perhaps they shouldn’t have. Perhaps Thor should have taken a step back and had a serious look at the situation, admit that perhaps Loki and him were not going to work out as a unit, and try to move on before he was in it too deep. His mom tried to talk to him about it at times, make him _think_. But who is he fucking kidding, Thor was in it, way over his head, pretty much since the first night. He never had a fucking chance. He didn’t _want_ a fucking chance. He wanted Loki.

Thor watches him now, as he leans on the wall, arms crossed. It’s a Psych 101 defensive posture, even if with his muscles, to most people it would look like he’s making a stand. But not to Loki, though, and they both know it. 

 

( _‘My my, what big guns you have,’ purred Loki, tracing bulges with his fingertip._

_‘All the better to hug you with’._

_‘And what can you do with this?’, Loki asked in a sultry murmur, stroking one thumb on Thor’s lips._

_‘Eat you up’, Thor growled in reply._

_Oh, that wicked smirk, that mischievous squint._

_‘Promise?’_ )

 

“You’ve got a cool set up here,” says Loki, having a nose around the sitting room.

Thor is feeling a little defensive; he doesn’t know if Loki’s being condescending or honest. 

“What do you want to talk about,” he snipes.

“How’s business?” asks Loki, as if Thor hadn’t said a thing.

Thor shrugs.

“What kind of work do you get?” asks Loki.

“There are two big-ish ad companies in town. They use me a lot.”

“Any music?”

“I do a lot of jingles.”

“I mean, real music.”

Thor throws him a mean squint. Ain’t he _nice_.

“Sometimes,” he chews the word. “Some small bands in town, when I feel like it. Fandral records everything here.”

“Any stuff of your own?” asks Loki, now running one long, pale finger over Thor’s old Telecaster displayed on the wall.

“No,” says Thor, cutting. 

“Don’t you miss it?” asks Loki.

Thor huffs. Sore spot. Can’t fucking believe Loki is prodding in it.

“I try not to,” he says acidly.

“Why?”

Thor huffs again, his growing irritation gusting out in angry, sharp bursts.

“I _had_ a career in music,” he grits between his teeth, and a meaningful stare, and then a bit of sarcasm. “It wasn’t good for my health. I cut it out, doctor’s orders.”

Loki’s gaze is keeping well away from him, roaming over the walls like a bored tourist’s on the mandatory visit to the local museum. Thor is staring at him with all the hostility he's feeling, trying to make a fucking point, but looking at Loki for such a long time means… damn, he’s so fucking lovely, and Thor had loved that face so much. He can’t keep it up for long. Not the glare, nor the hostility.

“I told you you didn’t have to leave,” mutters Loki meekly. “I would have never kicked you out of the band.”

“How the hell was I supposed to stay?” hisses Thor, five years of regret crowding in his throat in one big, fat, burning, sour lump. 

Loki bites his lip and frowns.

Talk about sore spots. This one never fucking stops throbbing. It would have been easier if Loki had actually kicked him out. Thor would not have to deal with his remorse now, every time he heard about Serpent slaying around the world, with him left behind in West Buttfuck, as the tragic fifth fucking Beatle who by his own decision never got to see the spotlights. 

 _You’ve done the right thing_ , everyone would say, those who knew how Thor’s exit from the band had gone down anyway. _You needed to heal, cut cleanly so that you could move on with your life_. Yeah, whatever, whatever you want to call it. Truth of the matter was, he had walked out in an almighty huff, humiliated, scorned, rejected, heartbroken, and healing had been pretty much the last fucking thing on his mind. But what’s the difference. Either way, Thor had ended up doing 'the right thing’, he had ‘cut cleanly so that he could move on with his life’... and here he is today, pretty much where Loki left him. It might have been savage, maybe even a complete, ‘call-in-the-lawyers’ and ‘any-doctors-in-the-house’ kind of mess if he had stayed, but at least, in between meltdowns and screaming contests, Thor would have got to make some music in really cool places, meet a few of his idols (the ones that still roamed this earth), maybe even share the stage with some of them. Leaving the band might have been the _right thing to do_ , but to this day, he feels so fucking cheated, and he has no-one to blame for it but himself.

Talking about alternate timelines: if Thor had never left the band, the breakup with Loki would not have lasted long, he would bet on it. Likely as not, regardless of either’s intentions, Loki’s or his, by the end of the first month, they would they have been tumbling in the sheets in some hotel in London, Hong Kong, or Barcelona, right? How could they not? Just imagine for a moment, tearing each other’s heart to pieces, screaming and making a fucking spectacle out of themselves, this time with press at the ready, reporting on their shenanigans like in a fucking soap. But fucked up as it sounds, Thor just can’t bring himself to… Damn. Those were the facts: that Loki broke up with him, but Thor had been the one to make sure they stayed broken.

What’s past is past, he tells himself whenever he finds himself regretting his life’s choices in general, and leaving the band in particular, but somehow it doesn’t seem to do much for him. 

“I’m sorry about that,” murmurs Loki eventually, his eyes lowered, fidgeting with his sunglasses. “That you had to leave.”

He does look sorry right now, not at all his larger-than-life rock star persona, there across the room from him, like one more among all those things on the wall, which in Thor’s mind are pinned next to a memory, a moment, a place, a mood. Thor chuckles, bitter as fuck (apologies, now? So fucking overdue), and Loki blinks quickly, as if hurt.

“What the hell are you doing here, Loki? What do you want?” he asks tiredly. His arms are still crossed, but his shoulders are sagging, all the fire gone.

Loki swallows, his toying with the sunglasses becomes more edgy. He takes about one century to reply.

“You know why,” he finally says, in a murmur that’s almost inaudible.

Thor scoffs.

“I really don’t,” he says. 

Yes, he does. Of course he fucking does. And it’s so like Loki, to just drop a few words and let Thor fill in the blanks. Let Thor do the fucking guesswork, and let Loki just play with what Thor gives him. Much safer. He can always go back and say ‘I never said that’. And Thor’s Loki-guessing muscle is in good shape indeed, even after all these years, but you know what, fuck you, Loki, put your fucking neck out for once. He wants to fucking hear this. He wants Loki to speak it out, to come out here and fucking own it.

A long, long silence. Loki dares to look up, only for a blink. Man, his eyes are so big and so pathetic. How he used to play Thor with those forsaken looks. Rather like a puppy, though, manipulating not out of malice or design, but out of pure survival instinct. Oh no, Loki never used the pity card to get his way, not consciously; he's much too proud.

“Yeah, you do,” murmurs Loki after a long time, his eyes always lowered. Then a huff. He’s really trying. “…You heard the songs.” 

“I can’t fucking believe you,” says Thor.

“Thor, I’m-I’m sorry about… you know. The other day.”

“You’re _sorry_ ,” scoffs Thor.

Loki pushes through with reciting what to Thor’s ears sounds like a rehearsed speech. In front of a mirror. With annotations, complete rewrites, further corrections, and a dress rehearsal.

“Yeah. Look, I wasn’t expecting you to be at the concert and just turn up like that. If fucking Volstagg hadn’t-…”

“Oh, so it’s Volstagg’s fault.”

“You weren’t supposed to see me like that.”

“Like what, off your head, or crawling on your knees and begging?”

Loki’s expression turns bilious.

“Yeah, thank you. Classy, rubbing my nose in it like that,” he grits out.

“You can talk about class,” Thor throws back.

Loki clenches his jaw. He chews the words this time.

“I came here today with the best intentions, to sit down and talk and work it out.”

“ _Work it out_.”

“Yeah. Why do you keep repeating my fucking words.”

“Making sure I fucking heard you correctly, that’s all.”

“Well, you-you did.” His voice has faltered a bit.

And he looks pretty helpless, and younger than his thirty years, and it’s hard for Thor to do this – it’s so hard. But he’s angry. Anger will get him through this. And some sarcasm.

“Amazing,” he says. “So, you’re sorry about the other day, you were hungover, if only Volstagg blah blah blah. Check. Now what? Let bygones be bygones? Do we ride into the sunset together? Or you just want a roll in the hay, for old times sake?”

The resentment in Loki’s eyes burns like acid.

“You’re being a real asshole, you know that?”

Thor smirks unpleasantly – not that anything about this is even remotely funny – and says nothing back. Despite appearances, he does not enjoy hearing that.

“Are you getting back at me about the other day?” asks Loki. 

“The other day?” snaps Thor. “Try the last five fucking years.”

Loki huffs, end of his tether.

“Well, fine, let’s have it. Get it out of your system. Scream your heart out. And when you’re finished, perhaps we can talk like civilized people, how about that.”

“What’s there to talk about.”

“Fucking hell, Thor. You-you fucking heard me. You _know_.”

Thor scoffs. Un-fucking-believable.

“Yeah, I fucking _heard_ you,” he says, with intention, echoing Loki's words last Saturday. “I just can’t fucking believe you. So, what _was_ the plan, then?” 

“Beg pardon?”

“The plan. If Volstagg hadn’t messed it all up for you, if you hadn’t actually blown your cover, if I had not seen just how fucking desperate you are? Were you going to drop by, since you incidentally had a gig in town, pick up the phone when you had a moment, maybe suggest we go out for a cup of coffee? Then maybe flirt a little, but play it cool? Make me dance a bit, like in the good old days? Keep me guessing, never let me know what you were really fucking thinking, what you were feeling? Saying one thing to my face, and then another in your songs? That old shit game of ours? Picking up where we left it? That was the plan?”

Loki is hiding behind a sour grin now, the hostility in Thor’s words causing him to instinctively put up his defences.

“Isn’t that what you’re into?” he hisses.

Thor snorts.

“Yeah, I guess that’s fair. I had that coming,” he says bitterly. “All you did was play the music, nobody made me fucking dance.” 

Deep exhale. He turns his back on him. He can’t look at Loki’s face right now. He can’t see it ever again. It’s too hard. This past weekend still feels fresh, raw. After years of feeling like a lump of scorched earth, Loki’s touch like soft rain, Loki’s kiss on his mouth, Loki all mellow and sweet and happy in his arms, making him laugh, humming in his ear, being cuter than kittens, _in his arms_. The smell of Loki on his bed, on his pillow, even this morning. God, if Loki had been different on Saturday, if instead of panicking and rushing to put on his suit of armour and raise the bridge and close the gates, he had shut his fucking mouth and… But that’s the thing, isn’t it? He couldn’t have done. He just can’t. Doesn’t know how. And neither does Thor. He will either give and give and give and put up with anything and everything, or he will have enough, and flare up and explode and burn everything down to the ground. All or nothing. That’s the fucking problem they have. They just… They’re no good for each other. Not like this. And it’s not about what Loki should have said or not said this weekend. It’s about who they fucking are. There’s no turning back time to change that, is there?

Thor’s every fucking instinct wants this, as it always has. He knows he can just reach out and Loki will be his. In his arms. That they can be fucking on his couch in no time. Memories of their epic reconciliations come to mind and crowd around him and pull at him and jostle him and plead and demand, and they cannot fucking believe he’s going to do this. But his brain has gotten older and colder and acquired some edges made of steel. Wiser or not, it remains to be seen, but in any case, it’s calling the shots these days.

Get it over and done with, man. Breathe in, breathe out.

“Go home, Loki,” he says.

Even with his back turned, he feels the charge in the air.

“…You want me to beg? To crawl?” asks Loki then, and he sounds affronted, unbelieving. “Haven’t I done enough of that already? How much more do you want me to humiliate myself? What else do you fucking want from me?

“You don’t get it,” says Thor, voice thick. His eyes are dry, but he’s drowning in it. “Nothing, Loki, I don’t want…” God, it’s hard. “I don’t want anything from you. I’m not setting up obstacles or trials or tests that you have to pass. There-there’s nothing you can do.”

“I said I was fucking sorry,” comes Loki’s voice, hurting, small, confused. “I’ve come here on my fucking knees. I’m eating my pride, see?” He chokes. And then a whisper, “Do I have to say it? Do you need to hear it? Goddammit, Thor, I-I want you back.”

Fuck. Like a knife straight to his heart.

Thor keeps his back to him. His eyes are stinging now. He too is choking. He closes his eyes, shuts them tight. Hang in there. Hang in there.

“Nah,” he forces out through the choke. It burns. “Nothing’s changed, and I…” It _burns_. “I can’t do this anymore. What I saw this weekend. I don’t want this.”

“I don’t _have_ to do drugs.”

“It’s not the drugs.”

“So what is it then?” pleads Loki in a desperate whisper. 

“We’ve been here before,” chokes out Thor, his back turned, arms around himself, eyes shut. Words are hard to push out; he’s not explaining himself much. But does it even matter? “We’ve been here. Done this. Again and again and again. I just… I don’t want it anymore.”

A spell of silence, then a stunned little whisper.

“But you want me.”

Thor looks at him now, can’t help it. Loki’s confusion and his struggle to process what he’s hearing is impossible to endure. Thor wishes he started yelling and screaming and spitting venom instead. 

He can’t fucking do this. He can’t. _You have to._ He rubs his face, pinches his eyes shut again

“What I want,” says Thor laboriously, “I can’t have. Can’t happen. Won’t happen.” And he’s mostly talking to himself right now, isn’t he? Hammering it in.

Loki’s tears have started to fall. His eyes are crystal green and from another world, and Thor loves him so much – god, he loves him. 

“I’m sorry, baby,” mutters Thor. And he wants to stop looking again now, but he can’t.

“And that’s it?” says Loki, with a sob. “This can’t be it.”

The disbelief in his tone and the forsaken expression are making it almost impossible not to hug him.

“But it is,” says Thor, eyes blurred, standing firm.

After a moment, the astonishment in Loki’s expression resolves into something else. Hurt, indignation. As if he’s been slapped, and is getting ready to slap back. He clenches his jaw and gives him a brutal look of hatred. He turns around and strides away. Thor can hear him sniffing, then a door slam.

Thor crumples down on the floor, back against the wall. He buries his face in his hands and lets it all out. He cries and cries and cries. He never knew breaking someone’s heart could hurt worse than having his own smashed to fucking pieces.

 

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Spoiler alert: Loki is not going to give up that easily.


	5. Chapter 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> As expected by all, Loki is back, with a proposition. How honest with himself is Thor willing to be?

Volstagg came through. He’s managed to get the gang together again. This is the third or fourth time they’ve done this now, meet up and hang out at the old haunt around a couple of beers. Thor has started to get used to the wrinkles in the corners of Fandral’s eyes, the three solitary grey strands in Sif’s hair that you can only see when she puts it up, to Volstagg turning down the salted peanuts and keeping it down to just two beers —Hogunn, of course, he’s been seeing often, so no big surprises there. First time around, Thor was shocked, and then kinda terrified, wondering how _he_ must have changed (well, those bags under his eyes don’t go down as quickly as they used to, that’s for sure, and never disappear completely anymore). Besides those little things, they had all fallen into step as easily and smoothly as if they had never stopped hanging out together. They go a long way back, and they’ve always gelled. So this evening, laughing over Fandral’s woes with the singer he’s currently “serving” (his words), it could be any night five, seven, ten years ago, no problem. And it’s all kinds of great, that’s the goddamn truth.

So when Thor spots Loki coming through the door, for a fraction of a second, he’s not thrown off at all. All he feels is that wonderful thing in his stomach whenever Loki walked in unexpectedly, especially when they were in between things.

Then he comes back to the present.

Loki eyes them and saunters over. That’s an old jacket he’s wearing, black leather, well-worn, butter-soft. Thor remembers it well, its smell, how it feels to the touch. No makeup today, hair down, t-shirt and jeans. Dressed down to pass as human, but still so fucking beautiful, how does he even… Thor glues his eyes on the dregs of his beer on the table.

Now Fandral sees him. His eyebrows go right up.

“Oh, dearie me,” he mutters.

“What a merry gathering,” says Loki, standing by their table. 

“Hey, boss,” says Volstagg. He’s tense, look at the set of his shoulders. Will his current employer make sure there's hell to pay later, over this betrayal?

“Taggs,” says Loki lightly. Doesn’t sound like he’s planning revenge. And he squeezes on the bench next to him, straight across from Thor. Folds one knee up, boot on the seat of the bench. Long, long legs. “I guess my invitation was lost in the post,” he muses. “You guys never heard of Sleeping Beauty? What happens when you forget to call the evil fairy in for the christening?”

An awkward silence. Nice of the background noise to let up a bit too, just now, just to add that extra sprinkle of cringe.

“Heard your last record, Lo,” says Fandral, who above all hates an uncomfortable silence and can always rustle up some verbal ammunition against it. “It was good.”

“I haven’t heard your last,” says Loki.

“Yes you did, you sent me a nice note, remember?”

“That was the last one? It was ages ago.”

“Yeah, been busy.”

“Playing at other people’s gigs.”

“Gotta eat,” shrugs Fandral, sweet smile.

Loki turns to Hogunn.

“How’s things, Hugs?”

“Same old.”

“Sif? You’re a sound tech in the movies now, I hear?” asks Loki.

“How do you know?”

“Taggart here,” says Loki, one hand on Volstagg’s shoulder. “Keeps an eye out for me.”

“Yeah,” she says. “It’s fun.”

Loki finally, finally, faces Thor.

“Met your cat,” says Loki. 

That _does_ get Thor to look up. Meets a pair of green eyes.

“What’s the name?” asks Loki. “Boy or girl?”

“You have a cat?” asks Sif to Thor.

“Yeah,” Loki answers instead. “Black, skinny, spiky hair, tail like an evil christmas tree; sly, mean, likes to attack from the back.”

“Sounds like Thor’s type, yeah,” jabs Sif.

Loki turns to her with a mean, crooked smirk.

“I did say skinny, but I guess he makes exceptions.”

Thor knees the table top from below. All the glasses shake and clink, everyone startles. Enough of this shit. _End of._ He fucking hates it when they do that, always has - Loki and Sif, trading jabs, playing mean, meaner, and meanest over _him_. Goddammit, let him live!

A second of silence. A new song has started to play in the background, at least.  

“Anyhoo,” says Loki. “I’m sure you’re wondering what the fuck am I doing here, and when do I intend to leave, so that’s enough pleasantries for today. I’ll keep it short. I have a business proposition for you all.”

Dramatic pause. There are some looks. He continues.

“I’ve been working on my next album. There was something missing, and I couldn’t put my finger on it. And then I thought, it’s going to be Serpent’s tenth birthday soon. And it hit me. I think what the new songs need are the old sound, the vibe of the original band. So,” concluded Loki, “how about a reunion.”

Thor snorts. On the one hand, he can’t fucking believe his ears. On the other, he should have smelled this from miles away.

“And I will pay you of course,” continues Loki, pretending he hasn’t heard a thing. “Top world-class rates. You also get authorship credits, and equal shares of whatever the record and the tour bring in. And I guess Thor’s momma’s garage is not an option anymore, but we could do this at Hammer Studios. Your turf, Thor. You produce; I want the real thing, the original sound.”

There is astonishment all around, and a quick criss-cross of looks as they all try to read each other’s minds. Not Thor. Thor traces with his fingertip the wet ring his beer glass has left on the table top, and slowly shakes his head in disbelief.

Loki is not finished.

“I could tell you how much my latest record has earned me personally so far, but my mom always said it’s not polite to talk money at the table. Anyway, it’s enough. Even split five ways —yes, five— I’ll renounce my share. Enough for you to pay your second mortgage, Taggs, and spend some more time at home with the kids. Won’t Hildy be happy. And enough for you, Fanny, to stop playing for other people and throw yourself heart and soul into your own music at last. Enough for Sif to… did you ever manage to go to Bhutan? Well, with a bit of money sense, you could spend the rest of your life traveling. Hogunn… I don’t even know what you want, but living from day to day teaching basic notation to middle schoolers can’t be it. If it is, now you get to do it _pro bono._ Thor…”

Thor stares up. Damn if Loki doesn’t flinch a little.

“Thor,” says Loki, evenly, “don’t you feel like making real music again? The rock band life you miss so much? Here’s your chance to get it all back. And if that doesn’t do it for you anymore, how about the chance of being more selective with the customers you take on. Fewer coffee jingles, more actual music.”

Ah, the balls on him. Their eyes are locked, there’s a sizzle when their glares meet. The silence is thick enough to cut.

Loki looks away first (maybe trying to keep the antagonistic element low, make this all sound more professional). He stands up and sorts his jacket out, though it looks perfect (so, not as cool and at ease as he wants to appear). 

“Think about it,” he says. “Of course, it’s all or none. I want the whole band, or there’s no point. Let me know your answer at your earliest convenience. See you guys around.” 

He struts away, and Thor’s eyes follow after —and isn’t that one damn fine ass.

At the table, it’s as if a bomb has gone off. They’re all stunned, reeling, trying to recover, maybe considering the possibilities in their heads, dollar sign in their eyes.

“Well, that was unexpected,” says Fandral, always the first to float to the surface again (he is after all composed in huge proportion of hot air; but at least the solid bits are decent and fun).

“Should’ve seen it coming, actually,” says Sif, looking at Thor. 

Thor resolutely does _not_ engage. It’s likely that it hasn’t sunk in yet. He can’t feel anything, his thoughts are one big, fat, black ball.

When he does look up, everybody is fucking staring at him. So that’s how it’s going to be, then.

“Fuck’s sakes,” he grumbles. Gets up and stomps out. 

 

Down the street, headed for home. It’s started to drizzle. He puts the collar of his jacket up, stuffs his hands in his pockets. Two people change sides when they come across him. Some figure he must cut.

He can’t fucking believe this. There’s a fucking screech in his head. He’s angry. Because Loki knows him so well but also so… appallingly? He knows what buttons to push, sure, and yet he does not know, he _refuses_ to know, that what Thor really fucking wants, what he really fucking needs… Oh, _fuck_ him.

“Thor!”

It’s Sif. He doesn’t slow down. She jogs to catch up with him. 

“Don’t want to talk,” he grunts when she’s by his side.

“Hey,” she grabs his arm.

“ _What_.”

She goes to say something, then one look at his expression and she changes tack. 

“Let’s walk.”

Walk they do, in silence, for some time, as the sharp chill of this early November evening blows into their faces. Puffs of steam when they breathe. In Thor’s head, a tumble of thoughts and feelings. Sure enough, in his own time, they start to come out, as Sif must have expected.

“Fucking begged me in tears to take him back,” he says after a long time, hoarse. He’s choked up. “ _Begged_ me.”

After a moment, probably wondering what will not set Thor on a screaming rampage, Sif goes with,

“Direct. When was that?”

“About four months ago.”

“Serpent’s concert in town?”

“Yup.”

“Should have guessed there was something going on. What did you say?”

“Guess.”

She nods, buries her nose in the woolly snood around her neck. They walk on. 

The entire debacle with Loki that day keeps replaying in Thor’s mind. He sees him in tears, that helpless expression when Thor said no, as if he’d been slapped. What it took for Thor to let him go, to push him away, when all he wanted was to hug him.

“I almost said yes,” confesses Thor, gruff, when he can’t hold it back another second. “I very nearly fucking said yes.”

She doesn’t say a thing. What’s there to say.

“He plays me like a goddamn fiddle,” he says, bitter. “He always knows exactly what to say, doesn’t he? And he’s got me.”

“You don’t have to do this, Thor.”

“No?” he throws back, sarcastic. “Volstagg’s second mortgage? Hogunn’s boat? Fandral’s music? Your fucking freedom?”

“No. You don’t owe us dick, any of us. These are our lives, and you’re not Santa.”

He scoffs.

“Hey, asshole,” she stops him again, one claw in his arm, a good shake. “Hear me out, and hear me well. _You don’t have to do this._ He can tempt you and pressure you any way he wants, but you’re still in charge here.”

He scoffs. Doesn’t buy it. Feels the pressure of those dollar-sign eyes on him like a ton of bricks.

“No, fucking listen to me,” she insists, another good shake. “Don’t let him guilt-trip you into anything. Don’t let _yourself_ guilt-trip you into this. Whatever you decide, it’s on you. Do it because you fucking want to. Because you don’t get to put this on our shoulders, okay? When the shitstorm breaks, you don’t get to blame anyone but yourself. Understood?”

Well, she’s always been blunt. And with a flare for dramatics. No wonder he likes her. He does have a type.

She lets go of his arm. He won’t rub it because he’s a manly man, but _ow_.

They stand awkwardly in front of each other in the middle of the night street, looking away from each other. Bit too intense, they need a second to find a safe landing spot after this.

It’s still drizzling.

“Buy you a drink?” she says.

Thor wants to go home and sulk. And that’s precisely why he should say yes.

“Buy me three.”

She laughs. They walk, at a civil pace now. 

“So what do you advise, then?” he asks. His tone is jokey, trying to lighten up the mood. “What should I do, you think?”

“Oh, no, I’m not even going to bother. You never listen to me when Loki is concerned, unless I’m telling you what you want to hear. Not gonna waste my breath.”

Ain’t that the truth.

He smiles to himself. Again, this could be any night ten years ago. It feels good, not gonna lie. 

First thing she says when they find a bar?

“When the hell did you get a cat?”

 

_______________________

 

He’s a little bit drunk when he gets home that night. With that bit of booze oiling up the old defence mechanism, helping it down, he puts Loki’s last record on. Then flops on the couch, with a jar of water beside him, because he’s a grown-up now and hydration is important.

Trickster pounds onto his stomach, then curls up on his shoulder.

“So, you met him, huh? You never mentioned it,” says Thor, giving him a thorough fuss. Trickster lifts his head and looks intense, as if he understands. “What did you think?”

The little fuzzball purrs and purrs, kneads his little paws into his shoulder, sinks his claws just that little bit in. Cute demon baby, he doesn’t know how to do this without throwing in that little edge of pain. 

Thor closes his eyes, listens to the music. 

Loki’s voice, Loki’s words, Loki’s sound. Thor is positive he could tell a song of his anytime, anywhere, even if somebody else was covering it. You can like his stuff or not, but you have to admit it’s individual, distinctive, and with tons of personality. 

And without even realising, he begins to listen with his business hat on. 

Man, Loki does still like his fills. They were always arguing about it. They distract from the main melody, baby. Yeah, I get that you’ve written it, and now you want to use it, but learn to love them and leave them. If it’s in the way, just let it go...

…Ah, shame, you should have left that part clean, only keyboard, like in the intro; would make the vocals more striking. 

…I see what you wanted to do here, but it’s over the top and you’re losing me. The bass is overpowering.

...The anthem vibe is pretty, but too heavy handed, IMHO. Lose the back chorus here, save it for that last verse, it would have so much more punch.

…This part is so fucking beautiful, you could have given it more room to breathe. We want to hear _you_ , not the fucking church choir…

...That’s such a good note, baby. What a singer you’ve grown into. You’d make Freddie proud.

…Shit, baby, how many fucking instruments do you need in this coda? Less is more, ever heard of that? 

…Sigh, but you can write music, goddammit. This last chord is breaking my heart…

When the record ends, he plays it again. More thoughts come to him. And he grows more and more into it, the producer role. Yes, he could have done this better. With his input, these would have been better songs. And he’s very, very close to being able to admit to himself that what crossed his mind when Loki said “you produce” was actually fucking stage fright. Loki has been working with the best in the business. What the fuck does he want with a little nobody from West Buttfuck? Well, turns out, this little nobody still has a few things to say. He has taste, he has ideas. And what’s more, he’s never been afraid to tell Loki he was _wrong_ , which Thor bets Loki’s not hearing anywhere near as much as he should these days. 

And there was always some screaming and door-slamming, sure, but Loki did, in time, acknowledge Thor had been right about things. Never in so many words, of course, but Thor remembers those times replaying something they had argued about, when Thor carried the day, Loki glowering at him across the room when they got to the controversial point in the song. And sure enough, soon he’d be coming over with lewd intentions -his way of saying “you’re forgiven” and “maybe you had a point. Who’s a clever boy. Here, have an orgasm, on me" (literally).

Oh my god, that time mom walked in on them in the garage, Thor on the swivel chair by the sound table, pants around his ankles, Loki on his knees in front of him… Mom squealed, Loki squealed. Once Frigga had cleared out, Loki all pale, going “oh my god kill me I want to die, kill me right now, please, kill me...”, and Thor just started laughing. Too much fucking soundproofing. Let’s put in a light for a doorbell or something to warn us when somebody’s coming, yeah? Or at least a fucking lock on the door...

And he’s smiling now, remembering. How fricking red Loki had been when Thor finally dragged him to have a cup of tea with Frigga, three weeks later (he’d been in hiding all that time, refusing to come to the house), he couldn’t lift his eyes from his shoes. After a first half an hour that was physically painful, they had laughed so much. ...Feels like they were so young, but didn’t they half think themselves as grown ups already. What did they know.

Second time around, Thor listens to the lyrics with more care. Loki has two writing styles; dry as fuck, cutting and enigmatic, or positively overflowing with feeling, images, and metaphors. Seems like that hasn’t changed; this record is overall more on the metaphoric side of things, to go with the melancholy, anthemic, overproduced (sorry, baby, it is) general tone of the work.

_Within me, my love, in silence / the night trembles, roses become / and whenever you’re near / all the rivers inside roar wild… /_

_And I wait and crave and hunger / and I sniff the air and search / like a wild cat in the sudden twilight of the tropics._

_I remember days of thirst / your metal and my metal / the shape of you missing from me / like you’ve been torn off the clay of my body…_

_you’re so far away, oh, nothing is further. / I call to you, but only my memories are listening…_

_grey skies pass, but it’s always the same sky. / all my songs are just one song / trying to summon you back._

_take me back / forgive / have it all / break my fall / oh my love, oh my love._

(Solid, deep sigh.)

…So, in his humble opinion, Loki needs a stern producer to rein in his exuberance like Stephen King needs a real editor, but apart from that, he’s still basically fucking _magic_. 

He also wants Thor back. And he’s not taking a no for an answer, and he’s returned with a fucking blood pact for Thor to sign, an _I’ll give you the world if you give me your soul_ kind of thing. On the one hand, there is the money, and his friends, and that’s enough, really, to push Thor’s buttons really fucking hard. But it’s not all. It’s the music. How fucking well Loki knows him. One look at his studio, and he must have sensed it so clearly, in fucking Dolby Surround. “ _Oh, baby, that was never the dream…_ ” 

Just think for a second. The five of them, together again, doing something cool, something that means something.

 _It’s just music, man_ (that was in Sif’s voice).

Yeah, whatever, it’s not important, I know, he answers himself. Everything is just ‘a thing’, Nothing means shit unless you want it to. But tell me it didn’t feel like it meant something, back then. Tell me it didn’t feel good, like life was a little more important, a little less ordinary, because your day job was to create beauty and emotion. Tell me with a straight face that Loki’s wrong, that you don’t miss it.

Tell me you don’t miss _him_. Even in that fucking bar this evening, wasn’t he like a vision from another world, from another life? A place with more light and contrast and sharper definition, where the lows are lower, the highs higher, and things are just… _more_? Damn you, baby. 

And what’s Thor got to say for himself? That he’s turning all of this down for the sake of… what, consistency? His dignity? Because he’s already told Loki _No,_ and he owes it to himself to stay strong? Because that’s what Loki wants, and he can’t let Loki win? Because he needs to teach him a lesson? That you can’t just do that to people, and we shall not give in to your pelvic sorcery, so there, take your golden promises and your electricity and your magic and your thunder and lightning with you?

And then what? Stay where he is now, the way he is now? Where the fuck is that going?

 _It’s self-care, man. It’s not all the fireworks and the blood-rush and the lust, it hurts like fucking hell too, don’t you remember? It’s not just the fighting and screaming. That was exhausting, but it was the trying to fucking reach him, trying to give him the love you’ve got, and him always slipping between your fingers, always out of reach, closed in on himself, pushing you away. You had your reasons to turn him down four months ago, and none of that has changed, has it?_ _Please don’t tell me you’re banking on that, that things may be any different this time. You burned out so many years hoping in vain._

Sigh. I don’t know. I don’t know. 

Let’s be real here: there is no way Loki intends to keep this professional, right? Or is Thor being presumptuous? Nah, no way. He’ll be his sexy, powerful, musicman-self, weaving spells of sounds and words, trying to seduce him. And Thor will go down like the fucking Roman Empire. He will. Sooner or later, for better or for worse. Don’t fucking lie to yourself, man, you have no fucking chance. Hell, you can’t wait to fall in, can you?

And Loki knows. Because Thor could never resist him when it was about the music. And because after five fucking years, Thor is ripe and ready. For four months, since Loki came to him (“ _Do I have to say it? Do you need to hear it? Goddammit, Thor, I want you back…”_ ) Thor hasn’t stopped thinking about it, about _him_ , running around in circles, craving. He hasn’t stopped seeing those tears in Loki’s eyes, wishing to wipe them away, take him in his arms, shut his eyes tight to reality, and say _yes, yes baby, yes, I’ll take you back. Let’s try again. This time, we’ll make it work. This time it will be different._

Oh, man. The pair of you, I swear. Where is _Thor and Loki, the tragicomic opera_?

He sighs again.

“I’m about to do a really stupid thing,” he confesses to Trickster. “If you have something to say, say it now, or forever hold your peace.”

_Prrrreow!_

He smiles. 

“Well spoken, but.”

His eyes wander on the ceiling.

 _Chirrrp_?

“Just thinking. Should I leave it for a few days or something? Will it make me look less desperate?”

_Mee-eeeh? Purr purr purr purr..._

“You’re right. I could leave him hanging for six months, and the moment I caved in, he'd count that as a win anyway. So who the fuck cares, right?”

He reaches for his phone on the coffee table. It’s a couple of hours earlier over there, right? Or was it two hours later? ...Oh, fuck it.

“ _Coulson_.”

“It’s Thor.”

_“Oh. Been a while. Nice to hear you.”_

“Thank you.”

_“I gather this is about…”_

“Yeah.”

_“You have a reply for us?”_

“Yeah. But I have conditions.”

_“Shoot.”_

“One single instance of drunken or drugged behaviour, and I’m out. With full wages, and a severance fee. Same for the rest of the band. Is that clear?”

_“Crystal.”_

“And one fucking temper tantrum, any broken equipment, and I’m also out. Again with full wages, severance fee, and a compensation for me and the band for our trouble. I’ll send you some figures, we can discuss them, but the clause itself is non-negotiable. Understood?”

_“Understood. I’ll convey your conditions to my client. We’d like to have a list of specs of the equipment available in your studio, to provide whatever’s missing.”_

“Nothing is missing, and Loki will have no complaints about the specs. I’ll send you the list anyway, if it makes you guys happy.”

_“I appreciate it. My client appreciates it, Thor.”_

“No problem.”

_“Our lawyers will be in touch about the contract.”_

“Bye, Phil.”

Call ended. 

 _Prrreow_? 

He scratches Trickster’s belly. The little slut rolls on his back and arches sensually. Then, all of a sudden, his ears prick up, he sinks in both back and front claws, kicks a few times, and bites. Thor waits it out. 

“Ow.”

Trickster lets go and jumps off, whooshes away. Thor sighs, checks his hand. Beautiful, Tricks, thanks.

Sigh. _Just swear to me you won’t fall into the old shit game again. If that’s what Loki’s after, you’ll have no part of it. Whatever fucking happens, no more of that. Swear it to me._

He does wish he could do that, and believe it.

So, anyway, apparently this is Thor Odinson’s triumphal return to the music industry. Real life starts tomorrow, but for now, he’s in a fucking excellent mood. 

 

 

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Lyrics: plundered (and then much mangled) from Neruda, the Catalan titan Vicent Andrés Estellés, and Lorca (sigh, always Lorca. "¡Qué silencio de trenes bocarriba!")
> 
> For example: 
> 
> And I wait and crave and hunger / and I sniff the air and search / like a wild cat in the sudden twilight of the tropics. -- "y hambriento vengo y voy olfateando el crepúsculo / buscándote, buscando tu corazón caliente / como un puma en la soledad de Quitratúe." Gah how I love this one.
> 
> and whenever you’re near / all the rivers inside roar wild… / "Y cuando asomas suenan todos los ríos de mi cuerpo"
> 
> Hey, Writernotwaiting, imma need your poetic genius for the next album, what say you?


	6. Chapter 6

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Thor wants to lay down some ground rules and be professional. He'll be breaking his own rules before the day is done.

 

 

“Door was open.”

Thor doesn’t have to look to know who it is, but he looks anyway. Loki in those sinful leather pants, that snuggly black jacket, clothes Thor always complimented him on. Sunny expression, cup of coffee in each hand. Thor bets it’s milk-not-cream-one-sugar for him. Loki has taken pains today.

“I thought you said back to basics,” grumbles Thor, surrounded by fifteen boxes of stuff that arrived first thing this morning. Some equipment, mainly musical instruments. “Do we really need a fucking accordion?”

Loki smiles, hands him the coffee.

“You never know.” He’s in an excellent mood. He’s spotted something in one of the boxes. He gets it out. Hah, the toy piano. “Remember this?”

Thor doesn’t reply.

“We got it cheap because…”

“Several keys stuck,” Thor finishes.

“Still do. I’m the only one who can make it sound good.” Loki plays a chord. “We couldn’t afford it, but you wanted to spoil me.” A happy sigh. “That was a good weekend.”

“Have you got some demos for me?” snaps Thor. He’s already struggling. It’s been less than five fucking minutes. 

“Yeah,” says Loki, his eyes bright. “Where do you want to do this?”

“Got them on tape?”

“Yeah.”

Thor puts out his hand. Loki looks at it.

“I was going to play them for you,” he repeats.

“I’d rather just have the tape,” says Thor.

“That’s not how I work,” says Loki.

“But it’s how I work.” He makes it stern, cutting, final.

The standoff lasts only a couple of seconds, but it feels like a long time. It’s Loki who puts an end to it, surprisingly. 

“Fine,” he says, with only a very minor huff. Has he learned to pick his battles, then? He fishes a pen drive from the back pocket of his pants, hands it over. It’s warm.  If Thor knows him a bit, there’s going to be a smart comeback in 3, 2, 1…

“I’ll text you when I have something,” Thor cuts.

If Loki did have anything to say, he decides to keep it to himself. He picks up his coffee —brisk moves, irritated— and prances out, his runway swag drawing Thor’s eyes as surely as the moon pulls in the tide. Exits Loki, who is like a grand lady of the stage and knows when to retire.

Thor’s shoulders sag now that tension has released them. He exhales. Clearly, having Loki around is going to take some getting used to. Especially since Loki has come prepared, all bases covered, from the clothes Thor likes, to the coffee the way he takes it, to the fucking toy piano. Loki knows him so well, like the palm of his own hand, doesn’t he? And he’s going to use everything he’s got. And what Thor is right now, more than anything, is flattered, and a little overwhelmed. Loki’s attention tends to have this effect on people.

He turns to the toy piano. He plays a few notes. It’s well tuned, but the sound is still kind of broken, aphonic. He’s heard it in the background of some of Serpent’s past albums, a handful of notes here and there, helping to create an atmosphere that’s sometimes haunting, sometimes sweet, melancholy always, with an echo of childish naivety. For Thor, however, they evoke an image of Loki playing with it on the carpet of a motel room, naked. ( _“Are you happy, baby?” asks Thor. Loki looks up at him, bright, dreamy smile on his face, so happy._ ) It _was_ a good weekend, a gig out of town they turned into a little romantic escapade. He remembers that small town, that hipster flea market, Loki in his long vintage coat, massive fake furry collar and trim, so seventies. Used to be a suspicious shade of orange, thrifty boy here dyed it dark green, almost black. Still left a residue, but it was all about the style these days. Dress for the part, he said. Huge Zsa Zsa sunglasses, nail polish, kohl, lipstick sometimes, eyeshadow even. Loki was a rock star long before he sold out his first sports arena. He was so fricking out there, so far removed from all those little ants just going about their day. Thor felt like the trophy wife sometimes, and couldn’t say he hated it. The amazing Loki Laufeyson had fallen for _him_ , and thought Thor was not only worth being seen in public with, but worth parading and showing off. At that point, they had been together long enough that they felt solid, but it was early days yet, and it still felt fresh, new, full of promise. The couple of breakups they had already gone through had only made them stronger. Their relationship was not yet a hellhole they could not escape. 

“ _Oh my god, look at this.”_

Of course Loki would spot that miniature music shop tucked away behind the stalls of antiques lining up the street. The door jingled the old fashioned way as they stepped in. The place was narrow, oppressive but cosy, like family, shelves stacked up with dusty, yellowing second-hand music sheet books to the right, antique and vintage instruments of all kinds at the back. Loki picked up a real-life lyre made out of an actual tortoise shell, with mother of pearl inlays, that seemed two hundred years old. The price tag made Loki gasp, then sigh miserably, and put it back down, with care. He moved on, under the eyes of the shopkeeper, a middle aged lady with a straw-coloured updo who had just appeared from a room at the back.

Now Loki had stopped in front of a miniature version of an ordinary wall piano, about twenty inches long and fifteen in height. Cute, good condition but for some wear and tear in the corners, bakelite keys. Loki played a few notes. Several keys refused to pop back up, but the sound made Loki smile. It had a much better resonance than its size suggested, distinct, with lots of personality. Well deserving of a place in Loki’s musical universe. Loki peeked under the top lid. Thick wood, nice waters. He checked the price tag, sighed. 

Thor whipped out his wallet.

“Baby…” said Loki.

“You want it?”

Loki’s eyes were greedy. Yes, he fucking _did_ want it. With a composed, aloof expression, for the benefit of the shopkeeper, he pretended to inspect it in more depth.

“I don’t know, baby. These keys stick,” he said. 

He also objected to some cracks in the paint veneer, discolouration, a touch of rust. He ended up getting a discount. It was still more than they should be forking out on stuff they didn’t really need, but Thor beheld his boyfriend _buzzing_ with sheer joy as the shopkeeper wrapped up his new toy, smiling like a boy at Christmas morning, how he was still grinning from ear to ear when they walked out of the place, parcel in his arms.

“Here, let me,” offered Thor, when Loki had changed his grip on the thing for the third time. It was heavier than it looked

“You spoil me,” purred Loki, and kissed him on the cheek, wrapped his arms around Thor’s waist. He whispered, “Let’s go back to the motel. I’ll make it up to you.”

 

It was a wonderful weekend. Thor has never had better.

 

________________

 

 

This was their process: Loki would come up with the bare bones —lyrics and a tune— and hand them over to Thor. He’d want to know what Thor heard in it, what he would have to say about it, in music form, that is. Thor would listen with a guitar in his hands, start toying with ideas. He’d pick some to show Loki, and then it began, the dance. In time, they would present the band with a fleshed-out song, and the band would play it once their way, and then start to add their stuff. They would end up with several variations, and while usually only one made it to the album, in concert they would play them all. And it was so much fun.

Thor plugs in the pen drive, grabs a notebook, gulps some coffee, plays Loki’s demo. Good quality recording, minimal reverberation. Not a proper studio, then. Maybe Loki’s house – one of them. It’s just guitar, piano, Loki’s voice. Raw, alive, like Loki’s there in the room with him after all, telling him those things. 

_“Torn apart, ablaze, I call you…”_

Thor scribbles notes, lots of notes. If he doesn’t, he’ll go out of his mind. They’re part words, part notation – his own, it doesn’t make a lot of sense to anyone else. He can’t write music, not really, and though he can sort of read it, basic level, the transition from symbol to sound isn’t natural in his head. He never really learned the proper way; he’s all intuition. My caveman, Loki use to taunt him sweetly, looking at his notes.

Isolate, take apart, detach. This is work. 

_“Your skin and my skin, my name in your mouth like a prayer..."_

Shit.

Thor goes to get his Fender from the wall, he plays the tape again. He starts fucking around with the guitar, trying things. He feels rusty, stiff, like he hasn’t picked up an instrument in years. He stretches his fingers, shakes hands, tries to loosen up. Tries again. He should really listen to it all several times, to get the general mood, but…    

_"What do you want, my love, what do you need. I’ll strip us bare and take us back, take us back, take us back to basics, flesh and need, you and me…”_

Shit. Isolate, take apart, detach. 

Follow Loki first, whatever notes he’s playing. Follow his voice. _His_ _voice_. If Thor shuts his eyes, Loki’s there. Like he always was, sitting across, their bodies swaying together with the melody, synchronized, locking eyes, connecting, communicating. Nothing they could verbalize, even if they tried. A nod, a head tilt, Loki’s long fingers on the keys, on the strings. Loki raising his voice, his face when he sings, deluged with emotion as you could never see it, except during sex. No cynicism and no distance and no aloof, snarky boy when he sings. His heart, there, reaching out, and Thor can touch it. He’s invited, he’s welcome, he’s wanted here, this time. Loki asks questions when he offers Thor the skeleton of his songs, and he wants to hear Thor’s answers. Loki, who could never fucking answer “fine thanks, and you” to a simple “how are you, baby,” but always had to find the smartass ironic reply; when they were doing this, however… Thor never felt more loved, or closer to anyone. Like Loki had taken him by the hand and showed him his hideout, his den, his world, his toys, his treasures, the things he loved most, because he trusted Thor to understand, to treat him the way he needed. _Come out, come out, come out to play_ … With Loki, it was _come inside_. 

And play they did. And laugh. And flirt. Sure, they fought too, but that would come later, about the details. At this stage, it was all possibility, all good and fun. Thor was so fucking happy. He felt Loki really got it in those times, that Thor loved him, how much Thor loved him, when they were playing Loki’s music and working together to make it better. Loki knew his power when he wrote music, knew that Thor was a junkie for what he was selling, the beauty he was able to conjure up. The music was the one thing about himself Loki didn’t loathe, second-guess, or doubt. Yes, he was awfully demanding, never quite happy, never good enough, sure, but _good_ , and Thor wasn’t entirely idiotic and deluded for loving it.

And Thor was there. He was always there, wasn’t he? Loki could push him away as hard as he wanted, but Thor just kept coming back for more, never stopped pushing back, never stopped trying to get in. He’d been telling himself for years what a fucking idiot he had been, why did he never wise up, why didn’t he fucking give up, why was it Loki who had to kill it in the end, that it should have been him. For dignity. He’d earned that right, hadn’t he? 

You know why Thor never gave up? Why he always came back? Why he never stopped trying? Because he was an idiot, sure, not gonna argue with that, but an idiot who had learned the one thing: who the fuck will ever make him feel like Loki does? Who the fuck _can_? The entire world is like spray-on cheese compared to him. 

_“And I kissed you when you loved me, and I kissed you when you hated me, and I swear I didn’t care… Hurt me, fuck me, destroy me…”_

Loki… 

“ _I lay us down, I tuck us in. I love us in the afternoon when the sun is low. I love us at that hour when we’re between flesh and gold…”_

Thor’s hand is in a place where it fucking should not be. It’s that deadly, sexy purr. Into his ears and straight to his…

“ _I’ll strip you bare and I’ll take you back to basics, flesh and need…”_

Oh, man, he thinks to himself, as he unzips and spits in his hand. 

_“Hurt me, fuck me, destroy me…”_

He shuts his eyes and Loki’s there, on his knees, and he is Thor’s.

_Loki…_

 

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The poetry is meh, sorry. Might come back and rewrite when inspired.
> 
> Writernotwaiting is preparing an amazing surprise for us all. In your own time. BUT SOON. But in your own time. But soon. <3333


	7. Chapter 7

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The song is More Stars Than Are in Heaven by Yo la tengo.
> 
> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9PZh451ppoM

 

 

For the first time in years, Thor wishes he still smoked. He’d like something to do with his hands right now. He’s reduced to holding the coffee cup Loki walked in with, which has been empty for a while because he drank it way too quickly. Anything to refrain from tapping his fingers or something equally revealing.

After more than three weeks fucking around, wasting time, he’s finally decided to call Loki over. Loki had been waiting patiently, not one peep to protest or rush him. He can be still as a fucking lizard when he wishes. Now he’s here in front of him, one foot on the seat of his chair (he likes folding up like that, and Thor likes him folding up like that, his legs go on forever), expression withdrawn, and listening. He hasn’t given Thor much in the way of expressions, comments, or gestures. What Thor can say is that when Loki walked in, he was beaming, in an excellent, radiant mood. Now the set of his mouth is hard, and his eyes don’t seem particularly bright.

“Yeah, okay, stop there,” says Loki eventually.

Thor snaps the switch abruptly, tense as fuck.

“No good?” he says, trying for unfazed, overdoing it.

Loki takes a moment. It has Thor bristling.

“Is it all like this?” asks Loki.

 _He doesn’t like it._ Ah, that thing in Thor’s gut. Feels as sour as ever. He’d never taken well to having his work criticized or disapproved of, but he really thought he’d matured over the years, gotten over his ego, and learned to deal with it like a professional and a grown up. Well, this is Loki, so think again.

“Like what?” Thor says, trying to sound like it’s no big deal, and overacting again.

Loki is taking his time, and it’s getting on Thor’s tits. Since when was he so circumspect. Usually he’d just throw it to your face as if you owed him greatness. Thor crosses his arms and stares him down, daring him. _Oh, come the fuck on, let’s just have it. I’m sure I’ve had worse._

“It’s great, it’s beautiful,” says Loki carefully. “It’s just… not how I imagined it.” And it sounds to Thor like the same throwaway nonsense in the same polite, respectful tone one would use to address a delicate point with a collaborator, _any_ collaborator _._ And it’s exactly what Thor asked for, and yet it’s stinging like fucking lemon juice on a goddamn paper cut. He’d much rather hear “it’s shit” and “are you fucking kidding me?” than this measured, subdued, civilized fuckery. Have they really come to this?

He tries for a blank expression. He thinks he more or less got it.

“Oh?” is what he settles for.

Loki considers his following words for another moment.

“It has a very… elegiac sound, very melancholy. It’s kind of a downer, frankly.”

“Yeah? And?” snaps Thor.

Loki bites his lip.

“I was hoping for something sweeter, more upbeat. More hopeful,” he says.

“Yeah, well,” shrugs Thor (totally on the defensive, he’s not kidding anyone). “The material just didn’t scream ‘hopeful’ to me, what can I say.”

“Oh?” Loki tilts his head _that_ way. It still makes Thor’s knuckles go white, how about that. His voice so sweet. “What does it scream to you, then?”

“Desperate,” deadpans Thor.

The thing that crosses Loki’s face, that squint, there and not there before you can grasp it.

They are staring at each other now, and they’re on the same page here, aren’t they? Thor has dished it out, and Loki’s got in in front of him, steaming.

And Thor regrets it immediately. As he usually did. Neither could ever back off from a snarky comeback, neither could ever let a sharp put-down get away. And they both sucked at saying sorry too. They were so much better at screaming their heads off instead. Is that what’s going to happen now? That twitch in Loki’s eye surely used to announce a gathering shitstorm, ready to unleash.

But instead, Loki inhales, exhales. _Control_.

“Thank you for your input,” says Loki tightly, his tone just that little sharper. “I would still prefer a more upbeat, more uplifting sound. And since it’s my fucking record…” His tone is still polite, in spite of the swearing. In his eyes, just a spark of the old fury, but he’s cool, far from snapping. And he leaves it there, in Thor’s court. What they call an impasse.

And Thor looks away after but a second, conceding. Loki’s refused to go where he was leading, and Thor feels like a fucking idiot right now. He’s the one that demanded to have on the contract that this thing should be conducted in a professional manner, and here he fucking is, on the first goddamn session, stirring the shit like a brat. Shame on you, man.

“Whatever you want,” he says, humble. White flag. “Why don’t you show me what you had in mind then?”

A double-quick blink on Loki’s face, who wasn’t expecting that. (Yeah, well, I’m trying too, baby.)

“Okay.”

“What do you need?” says Thor, already at the door.

“The Gibson.”

“Give me a sec.”

 

A moment later, Loki sits with the Gibson on his lap and plays a couple of random chords to warm up. And then the fingering resolves into specifics, and Thor identifies the song and frowns at the unexpected choice he picked to begin with; compared to the rest, the lyrics are very, uh, subtle. Subtlety is not Loki’s thing. What is he up to?

Long intro, several tones up from the key Thor had ended up with in his final demo. The guitar scratching is soft; Loki is barely brushing the strings. Thor had gone for ragged. The backbone of it is an obsessive riff Thor had interpreted as much heavier, thudding. Like the song is a walk, rather than a military parade. And yes, Loki’s version is already much better.

As he approaches the first verse, Loki’s expression tenses exquisitely, aching, his entire posture swaying and bending with the melody. Then he starts singing.

 

_We’ll go hand in hand_

_Never understand_

_Take the hidden wish to death_

_And laugh and laugh and catch your breath_

_And forget that every word’s been said_

_We’ll walk hand in hand_

Damn. Thor had told himself it wouldn’t be so bad. He’s seen Loki on stage not so long ago after all, and he’s rolled those fucking demos seven hundred times, as rough and unfinished and unfiltered as what’s going on now. He knows the lyrics by heart, and he’s had time to have his fill of Loki’s voice performing them these last three weeks. But deep down, he fucking knew he was not prepared. There is nothing like the real thing, and there is nothing like the real thing right in front of you, close enough to touch, with no-one else around, just you and him, that thing Loki does when he’s making music, that raw, pulsing… whatever it is, all of it aimed at you. He’s only a few lines in, and Thor’s already floored, gaping, his eyes wide, and so fucking obvious.

Loki doesn’t miss it, of course. He can do several things at once, no problem: playing, singing, eyefucking, rejoicing in the power he still holds over him, and never miss a step or a cue.

 

_The sign looks missed, the marks we’ve placed_

_The playful grin that won’t erase_

_We’ll walk hand in hand_

 

Thor looks away, suddenly aware he needs to get his shit together now. Grabs his guitar, and tries to see only his fingers and the strings.

“B-flat major,” says Loki, still scratching that soft, obsessive riff.

Thor tilts his head and gives him a look. _Bitch, please._ And Loki laughs. And after a strange, heavy moment, so does Thor.

“Okay. Again,” he says. The spell is far from lifted, but Thor feels more at ease now, less overcome by it, more at home. Yeah, he knows this place, he came to own it a long time ago, and it hasn’t changed. If he doesn’t fight it, he can just walk in and rest.

Loki takes it from the start.

 

_We’ll go hand in hand_

_Never understand…_

 

Thor can’t synchronize properly without looking at Loki. Loki, who is swaying and humming the melody, whose throat does fucking indecent things when he’s singing, whose face is radiating emotion in a way that goes right to the heart and gut.

 _Music, Thor, the fucking music._ He shuts his eyes for a moment. Okay. _Upbeat. Hopeful._ But with an elegiac undertone, because damn if it doesn’t add depth and dimension to the song, and damn if they don’t have five years, no, _ten_ fucking years of common history to put in there, for art’s sake and all that. Thor tries a sustained note, hums a harmony. _Not quite, but close._ Another note, holding up the hum. _Getting there._

Loki nods slowly with the music, his eyes so bright. He likes it. It shouldn’t be such a rush, but it is. Thor is glowing.

 

_We’ll walk hand in hand_

_Never as we planned…_

 

It’s all coming together now with an anthemic vibe, if you can whisper an anthem. It ascends. Thor’s hands are on fire now. Long identical notes repeat over Loki’s soft riff. Thor doesn’t know where they came from. They sing about…joy in spite of everything, endurance, perseverance. Loki smiles as he sings, delighted, the smile resonating in his singing, and fuck, just – fuck. His leg beats a slow rhythm that can’t be heard but that both their heads are already adding in, hearing it. They’re in the same place now, Thor is sure. As if the last five years never existed. Like they’d been together all this time, coming together like two halves of the same thing. This thing they were, for better or for worse, but a _thing_ it was, no doubt; and here it is, throwing off invisible tendrils of possession between them, binding them. _Mine. Yours. Us._

 

_And even though we feel the burn_

_We careen past the heavy turn_

_Push, then pull to scale the hill_

_Then miss the cliff, don’t take the spill_

_Until we can’t withstand_

_We’ll walk hand in hand_

 

Loki’s leg marking a heavier beat, his eyes on fire. He feels Thor there, by his side, holding Loki’s hand, going where he leads. Loki nods, a signal. His eyes say, _go for it. It’s yours. Take it away, show me where it goes. I trust you_.

Thor breaks it down – ragged notes, slightly discordant, beautiful noise. He’s thinking of all the fighting, the screaming, the fucking, the crying, the laughing, the living. Living _more_ , louder, stronger, more intensely. Loving. Loving him. Loki loving him back. Never doubting Loki loved him, even in the worst times. Feeling stripped raw, fucking bones touching. Like nothing else, like nobody else.

Loki closes his eyes, and he’s so fucking beautiful. Thor adds a melancholy hum over the words ( _Until we can’t withstand._ Why did you leave me, baby? Why?).

 

_Running from the pull of tide_

_Fumbling from the creeping time_

_Running out of whim and rhyme_

_We’ll walk hand in hand_

_Till we understand…_

 

Loki nods again, it’s a cue. He offers. ( _Join me. Come with me.)_ It’s an ingrained reflex, following Loki wherever he goes. In song, in every other way. They sing together.

_Right before our very eyes_

_Forced before our very eyes_

_Dies before our very eyes._

 

But the music says it’s all about being reborn, a note that holds up, and walks on, and on, and on. Thor wants to go there, wherever the song is going. He takes it over, and Loki steps back and he’s the one doing the following now, and his eyes are like they ever were when he felt Thor in that place with him – a lost, lonely boy, found.

Loki nods now almost hesitantly, _Are you with me?_ Thor nods, eyes connected. _(Dammit, Loki, I always fucking was.)_ Loki sings, Thor gives him the replica.

 

_We’ll walk hand in hand (we’ll walk hand, hand in hand)_

_We’ll walk hand in hand (we’ll walk hand, hand in hand…)_

_Hand in hand…_

 

They go on and on, as if they never want it to end. They don’t. They’re together. It’s beautiful, luminous, right, as it should be. Going on and on and on, together. A mismatched, harmonious pair, in perfect contrast, always in conflict, bouncing off each other, sparks flying, pure beauty.

Only that’s not what they are anymore, because Loki left him and tore his heart to bleeding rags. He walked away from all of this without ever giving him a fucking good reason, like it didn’t matter, like he didn’t care. And it’s been years, sure, but Thor still hasn’t heard a good reason, and he’s still fucking hurting, and he doesn’t want to hurt again when Loki next decides that he can’t be bothered anymore.

His eyes stinging, Thor pulls back and away. He leaves it to Loki. Loki takes the coda alone, and even after the last note dies, the song is hanging there between them, unfinished.

Silence.

When Thor risks a look up, Loki’s eyes are searing him. The smile barely touches those lips, but it’s fucking bursting through in Loki’s eyes. Now is when they would have kissed, way back when; slowly and beautifully, because damn if it doesn’t feel good, this stunning thing they have just done, together.

Thor breaks it up and sits back.

“Right,” he says, willfully killing the moment.

Loki’s light dims noticeably. The silence turns awkward very fast. He starts to play with the Gibson, random chords, for something to do with his hands, filling the emptiness that unsettles him, but not Thor, who was already pretty fucking unsettled.

“I want several layers of sound, lots of them,” says Loki. “I know you always like to keep it simple, but with the repetitive feel I think the song can take it. Don’t you think?”

“Yup,” is all he says, not interested in making this easy on him.

“I was thinking very soft drums too, but coming in way into it,” adds Loki. “Again, start light, then build it up.” He’s trying to pull him in again, isn’t he?, reel him back into musicland, where he evidently still owns Thor down to his fucking soul.

Not happening today, sorry. Not again.

“Okay, yeah. I got you,” says Thor. It came out cutting, bordering on dismissive.

Which he is. Dismissing him. Trying to. Half-assedly, but trying to make it full-assedly as hard as he can.

“…Okay,” says Loki, put off.

“Let me work on it again for a couple more days. I’ll try a few things, and I’ll get back to you.” And that came out just as clean and businesslike as Loki’s early criticism of Thor’s initial arrangements.

Oh, don’t look at me like this, Thor thinks then. _Work relationship,_ baby. _Collaborators_. Read the goddamn contract.

The silence stretches on, without Thor giving in an inch. He's not even looking at Loki.

“Fine,” says Loki eventually, cold.

Puts down Thor’s Gibson, with due, contractually-bound care. Stands up, quickly grabs his things. Thor tries to clear his expression, wipe anything that might be revealing off his face, but it doesn’t work out so well. He’s not sure what he’s feeling right now, and he’s afraid his face is broadcasting that loud and clear.

“Call me, then,” says Loki, as he leaves, swinging his ass.

When he hears the street door click shut, Thor sits back with the mightiest exhale and rubs his face. Some professional.

  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you Writernotwaiting for the musical check. I know zip about music I'm afraid.


End file.
